scholarly journals Exposure to Common Enemies can Increase Political Polarization: Evidence from a Cooperation Experiment with Automated Partisans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eaman Jahani ◽  
Natalie McDaniel Gallagher ◽  
Friedolin Merhout ◽  
Nicolo Cavalli ◽  
Douglas Guilbeault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Computational Social Science ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Group Conflict ◽  
Opposing Party ◽  
Common Enemy

Longstanding theory indicates the threat of a common enemy can mitigate conflict between members of rival groups. We tested this hypothesis in a pre-registered experiment where 1,670 Republicans and Democrats in the United States were asked to complete a collaborative online task with an automated agent or “bot” that was labelled as a member of the opposing party. Prior to this task, we exposed respondents to primes about a) a common enemy (involving threats from Iran, China, and Russia); b) a patriotic event; or c) a neutral, apolitical prime. Though we observed no significant differences in the behavior of Democrats as a result of these primes, we found that Republicans—and particularly those with very strong conservative views—were significantly less likely to cooperate with Democrats when primed about a common enemy. We also observed lower rates of cooperation among Republicans who participated in our study during the 2020 Iran crisis, which occurred in the middle of our fieldwork. These findings indicate common enemies may not reduce inter-group conflict in highly polarized societies, and contribute to a growing number of studies that find evidence of asymmetric political polarization. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for research in social psychology, political conflict, and the rapidly expanding field of computational social science.

Creating and Disrupting Othering During Policymaking in a Polarized Context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K Schraedley ◽  
Debbie S Dougherty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Food Security ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Global Food Security ◽  
Opposing Party ◽  
Policy Proposals ◽  
Global Food

Abstract As the United States has become increasingly polarized, policymakers have had difficulty gaining bipartisan support for policy proposals. Political polarization can lead to the othering of individuals, a process characterized by the tendency to construct members of an opposing party in negative ways. In this article, we examine the creation and disruption of othering through the lens of language convergence/meaning divergence (LC/MD) and pragmatic ambiguity. LC/MD and pragmatic ambiguity framed our case study of the successful bipartisan passage of the Global Food Security Act (GFSA) in 2016. We found that othering was produced through a maestro Discourse of Polarization that structured interactions between other Discourses, including the Discourse of National Security and the Global Good Discourse. Discordant framings of the three Discourses created the ambiguity necessary to disrupt othering and achieve collective action. The findings provide new theoretical insights into othering processes while pragmatic ambiguity broadens LC/MD in important ways.

Dynamics of Pakhtun Social Structure: Implications for Economic Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-42
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Protestant Work Ethic ◽  
Social Character ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
The Social

Every region and people has peculiar economic characteristics and these features largely have roots in that region‟s social structure, social psychology and its dynamics. The capitalist economy of the United States has roots in individualismand Protestant Work Ethic, influenced both by Protestant religion and the social character of the Americans; the Client Economy of Saudi Arabia has deep linkages to its tribal social structure and the so-called Bazaar Economy of Afghanistan is profoundly embedded in the Pakhtun social structure of the country. The Pakhtuns of Pakistan have a peculiar social structure and social psychology thereof having profound and extensive influence on the region‟s economy particularly its largely underdevelopedcondition. The paper explores the characteristics of Pakhtun social structure and the interactive linkages between the social edifice and economic development or lack of it.

scholarly journals Dewey and Political Communication in the Age of Mediation

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 94-102
Author(s):  
Lance E Mason
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Sociopolitical Environment ◽  
The Way

The present sociopolitical environment in the United States is perpetually mediated and beset with information from innumerable sources. This paper argues that Dewey’s conception of communication as a mutual act of meaning-making holds insights for explaining the connections between pervasive mediation and political polarization, in addition to understanding why political discourse has become more degrading in recent years. It also points the way toward viable solutions by arguing for the reorientation of schools toward valuable living experiences that are becoming less pronounced in the broader culture, such as sustained face to face engagement on matters of social import.

Bourdieu’s Unlikely Contribution to the Human Sciences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Levi Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Field Theory ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Reciprocal Relations ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Do So

Chapter abstract The author of this chapter proposes that we consider Bourdieu’s work neither on its own terms, nor in the terms of the postwar French academic field, but in terms of the general problems that it solved. When we do so, we find that Bourdieu developed lines of thinking that had stalled in Germany and the United States. The former was the field theoretic tradition associated with Gestalt psychology and empirical phenomenology; the second was the habit theoretic tradition associated increasingly with pragmatism. Each had stalled because each seemed, in a way, too successful—everything turned into habit for pragmatist social psychology; field theory also put everything indiscriminately in the field of experience. By focusing on the reciprocal relations of habitus and field, Bourdieu developed these insights in ways that allowed for empirical exploration, and that cut against the French rationalist vocabulary that he inherited.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document