The promise and pitfalls of cross-partisan conversations for reducing affective polarization: Evidence from randomized experiments
Open accessAbstract
Organizations, activists, and scholars hope that conversations between outpartisans (supporters of opposing political parties) can reduce affective polarization (dislike of outpartisans) and bolster democratic accountability (e.g., support for democratic norms). We argue that such conversations can reduce affective polarization but that these effects are likely to be conditional on topic, being especially likely if the conversations topics avoid discussion of areas of disagreement; usually not persist long-term; and be circumscribed, not affecting attitudes toward democratic accountability. We support this argument with two unique experiments where we paired outpartisan strangers to discuss randomly assigned topics over video calls. In study 1, we found that conversations between outpartisans about their perfect day dramatically decreased affective polarization, although these impacts decayed long-term. Study 2 also included conversations focusing on disagreement (e.g., why each supports their own party), which had no effects. Both studies found little change in attitudes related to democratic accountability.
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Santoro and Broockman (2022) find that the effectiveness of cross-partisan conversations depends on the topic through a randomized controlled trial.
“Santoro and Broockman (2022) find that the effectiveness of cross-partisan conversations depends on the topic through a randomized controlled trial.”
From Cross-Partisan Interactions on Twitter (2025) · cites this paper as Santoro and Broockman (2022)
The effects correspond to a decrease and increase in affective polarization equivalent to 3 and 3.6 years of rising partisan animosity in American society.
“Like other studies (49), we contextualize these effects against the rising levels of partisan animosity in American society over time: our effects correspond to a decrease and increase in affective polarization equivalent to 3 and 3.6 years, respectively.”
From Reranking partisan animosity in algorithmic social media feeds alters affective polarization (2025) · cites this paper as [49]
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The EU Issue: Elite Division and Public Indifference
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- Authors
- Santoro, E., & Broockman, D. E.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Santoro, Erik
- Broockman, David E.
- Venue
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2022-06-24
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 25
- Pages
- eabn5515-eabn5515
- ISSN
- 2375-2548 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9217089
- OpenAlex
- W4283261630
- Cited by
- 126
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 44 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 66.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Science Advances (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Keywords
- affective polarization, intergroup contact, democratic accountability, democratic norms, video calls, political conflict
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