(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Couch, Tiffany; Girvan, Erik
Levels of affective polarization in the U.S. have risen significantly in recent decades. Affective polarization, a form of political polarization by which partisans show high levels of antipathy towards opposing partisans because of their membership in that party, can be viewed as a form of social identity, whereby membership in a party is guided by feelings of belonging rather than agreement with ideological stances. Following the established research on Social Identity Theory (SIT), this study hypothesizes that affective polarization can be lowered using dialogic-type processes to recenter the individual identity over the social one in political discussions. Using the online platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), the hypothesis was tested using a sample of 60 American partisans who engaged in a short process to simulate these conditions. The results of the study were inconclusive, though methods for expanding and revising the methodology for future studies on the topic are discussed.
