New Approaches for Prejudice Reduction and Depolarization

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Partisan polarization and ethnic prejudice pose challenges for democracy and governance in many countries around the world, and political scientists have developed theories and experimental interventions aimed to depolarize citizens or reduce ethnic prejudice. Despite many shared objectives and challenges, those researching ethnic prejudice reduction and partisan depolarization are not often in conversation. Our panel, titled “New Approaches for Prejudice Reduction and Depolarization” brings together researchers from American and Comparative Politics to explore the causes of affective polarization and prejudice, and discuss findings from recent experimental interventions designed to reduce prejudice and polarization. Our panel includes four papers: Erin Rossiter will present research identifying the effects of person-to-person conversations on partisan polarization in the U.S.. David Romney will present research (with Ryan Enos and Rich Nielsen) that estimates the effects U.S. college based segregated environments on intergroup relations. Laura Jakli will present a paper (with Paul Gill) which develops a new method to measure polarization in online communities, and considers how salient news events shape partisan polarization. Lastly, Chagai Weiss will present a paper (with Alexandra Scacco and Alexandra Siegel) which considers the effects of online news exposure on prejudice towards Palestinians, through a Facebook field experiment implemented in Jerusalem.

Sub Unit

• Division 5: Political Psychology

Individual Presentations

• A Text-Based Assessment of the Mechanisms of Contact - Erin Rossiter

• Desegregating Virtual Spaces: A Facebook Field Experiment in Jerusalem - Chagai Weiss, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Alexandra Scacco, WZB Berlin Social Science Center; Alexandra Arons Siegel, University of Coloardo Boulder

• A Machine Learning Approach to Detecting Polarization in Social Media Discourse - Laura Jakli, Harvard University; Paul Gill

• Segregation & Intergroup Relations: A Natural Experiment with U.S. College Students - David Alexander Romney, Brigham Young University; Ryan D. Enos, Harvard University; Richard Nielsen, MIT

Chair

• James N. Druckman Northwestern University

Discussants

• Kimuli Kasara Columbia University

• Yphtach Lelkes University of Pennsylvania