Based on the research of Christopher Bryan and Maytal Saar-Tsechansky

America’s Political House Can Become Less Divided iStock 1831402075

Maytal Saar-Tsechansky was standing a few meters from Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, when he was assassinated by a right-wing extremist in Tel Aviv.

“At the time, Rabin was promoting peace with the Palestinians,” says Saar-Tsechansky, professor of information, risk, and operations management and the Mary John and Ralph Spence Centennial Professor at Texas McCombs. “The assassination was the result of a lot of incitement, of some people claiming that he was the enemy of the people.”

Although she typically studies artificial intelligence, the traumatic incident planted a seed for a different interest: how to ease political divisions. She began working on an algorithm that would alert social media users to polarizing content. She also approached Christopher Bryan, associate professor of business, government, and society, to design an intervention that could help persuade them to avoid such content once they were alerted to it.

The intervention — an eight-minute interactive e-learning module — became part of a new megastudy, published two weeks before a bruising presidential election. Bryan and Saar-Tsechansky were among 86 co-authors who devised and tested methods for reducing partisan animosity and antidemocratic attitudes, one person at a time.

The megastudy’s lead researchers selected 25 “treatments” from hundreds of submissions. They included informational videos, games, articles, and writing prompts. Many highlighted likable people of the opposing political party or emphasized traits or values that rival partisans have in common.

In the module by Bryan and Saar-Tsechansky, subjects read about how news media exploit polarization for profit. The module included data showing that the more news a person watches, the more exaggerated and inaccurate are that person’s ideas about people with opposing views.

After viewing the information, subjects were prompted to talk about actions they and others could use to “take control back from the media.”

Of the 25 treatments, theirs proved second most effective in reducing partisan animosity: by 10% compared with a control group that received no treatments. It also had smaller effects on attitudes such as social distrust and opposition to bipartisan cooperation.

“The effects were not huge, but it is possible to mitigate some of these issues. I think it’s very, very encouraging,” Saar-Tsechanksy says.

Pulling Back on Partisanship

In all, the megastudy tested its treatments on more than 32,000 self-identified Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Its overarching finding was that 23 of the 25 efforts led to statistically significant reductions in partisan animosity, which the researchers define as “dislike for opposing partisans.”

The research, citing studies that partisan animosity grew by 22 percentage points between 1978 and 2016, found that:

The average reduction in partisan animosity was 5 percentage points — equivalent to eight years of the increase seen in recent decades.
The most effective treatment was a video of British people “bonding with one another despite having political disagreements.”
For six treatments, the reductions held for at least two weeks. Bryan and Saar-Tsechansky’s treatment was the most lasting, maintaining 90% of its impact.

The treatments were more limited in reducing other negative attitudes.

Six significantly lessened support for undemocratic practices. The most effective treatments challenged perceptions that opponents were antidemocratic or highlighted “the potentially disastrous consequences of democratic collapse.”
Five reduced support for partisan violence, most notably by showing subjects op-eds in which leaders of their parties rejected violence or campaign ads that endorsed acceptance of election results and peaceful transfer of power.

Both McCombs researchers say the study provides ideas that could be incorporated into civic education or media literacy courses. Saar-Tsechansky hopes it will get the attention of school districts, to help educate teenagers “who already have some critical thinking skills and care about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

She and Bryan see education as the most viable medium for reducing polarization. They say media — particularly cable news — fan the flames of political division to increase ratings, readership, and revenue. Politicians also benefit from this system, so they have little incentive to change it.

Bryan says most Americans are part of an “exhausted majority.” They want Democrats and Republicans to work together to address real problems but feel they’re falling victim to media messaging.

He points to social psychology research around pluralistic ignorance. It’s a phenomenon, he says, in which “people outwardly act as though they’re on board with something, because they think everyone else is, when really they aren’t.”

Bryan hopes the megastudy will encourage more Americans to think beyond media narratives. He says, “If people just understand what they’re consuming and they understand the motives behind the content, then they’re much better equipped to protect themselves.”

“Megastudy Testing 25 Treatments to Reduce Antidemocratic Attitudes and Partisan Animosity” is published in Science.

Story by Kiah Collier