The Politics Effect: Why Some People Avoid Political Contexts

• In Event: Partisan Violence and Incivility

Abstract

ow do people perceive politics? Even more importantly, how do these perceptions affect people’s willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints and engage in political contexts more generally? In this project, we ! rely on a series of studies to examine both questions. First, we find a strong association between politics and conflict. Next, we rely on a series of six experiments, open-ended responses, as well as data from Pew’s American Trends Panel, to track how the link between politics and conflict shifts people’s behavior. In these studies, we first examine how the description of a context as “political” encourages people to engage in combative debate. Second, we next examine how the relationship between politics and conflict leads some people to opt out of political conversations and discussions entirely. We demonstrate that this self-selection out of politics is not due to a disinterest in political issues – rather, it is a response to the word “politics.”

Authors

• Eric Groenendyk, University of Memphis

• Yanna Krupnikov, Stony Brook University

• John Barry Ryan, Stony Brook University