As we’ve seen polarization grow in this country, we’ve also seen many activists talk about … well talking! – you know, having hard conversations with family or friends who may not share the same political leanings as you. But when UC Berkeley political scientist David Broockman and Stanford social psychology Ph.D. student Erik Santoro went out to scientifically gauge the success of these conversations, they found that they were actually not that helpful.
The pair conducted a two-part study across America to better understand whether conversations between Democrats and Republicans were truly effective in decreasing polarization. The first part paired up participants to talk about a totally non-political, non-controversial topic – their perfect day. That did decrease polarization – but only briefly. The effects of this pleasant conversation seemed to wear off after three months.
The second part of the study asked participants to not only talk about their perfect day, but also more divisive topics, like the other person’s political party. That did nothing to decrease feelings of polarization.
Broockman and Santoro both hope to advance these findings by experimenting to find more effective ways to have these conversations and performing more studies to examine the limitations of other such political efforts.
