“How Do We Put the Country Back Together?” Mitigating Affective Polarization Through Mediated Intergroup Contact

ABSTRACT

Affective polarization presents an ongoing threat to the political and social functioning of democracies as partisans increasingly dislike and distrust opposing partisans. Because engagement with political media is one way by which citizens understand partisan dynamics, we hypothesize that exposure to positive mediated intergroup contact via an entertainment narrative may be able to attenuate feelings of affective polarization—especially through identification with a character that expresses differing political views—but also that negative intergroup contact via a political debate could exacerbate partisan tensions. This premise is tested in an experiment (N = 544) that juxtaposed real-world examples of political media using excerpts from the U.S. television comedy The Conners and the 2020 U.S. presidential debates. Two common indicators of affective polarization, a feeling thermometer and social distance, were used to measure the affective gap between Democrats and Republicans. For the purposes of our analyses, a brief implicit association test (BIAT) was also conducted to measure participants’ implicit bias toward members of the political outgroup. We find evidence that exposure to positive intergroup contact can attenuate partisan tensions, especially through identification with the character belonging to the opposing political party, but that identification with the co-partisan character can further exacerbate negative affect.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2024.2332341.

Notes

¹ In addition to these two indicators of affective polarization, the measurement instrument also included an online variation of the dictator game. However, given the unclear validity of this measurement in the current context, it is not included in the manuscript (please see the online supplemental materials for further details and results in regarding this measure).

² Acknowledging the possibility that participants’ implicit bias might predispose them to identify more or less readily with an opposing partisan character, we conducted mediation analyses using identification as a mediator of the relationship between implicit bias and affective polarization outcomes (PROCESS Model 4). These interactions were non-significant, albeit with a borderline result for the mediation of identification with Dan and social distance: b = −.24, SE = .13, p = .07; 95% CI [−.51, .02].

³ Due to the distinct characterizations of Dan and Darlene with respect to interparty affect and the differing ideological viewpoints of Democrats/Republicans, the moderation analyses were conducted by character rather than by ingroup/outgroup pairings.

Additional information

Funding

The project described was supported by funding from the Center for Entertainment and Civic Health. Contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the Center.

Notes on contributors

John J. Brooks

John J. Brooks (Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2023) is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Communication at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). Dr. Brooks specializes in narrative approaches to engaging contentious topics, with an emphasis on the use of stories to communicate across social, affective, and political divides.

Christopher M. Dobmeier

Christopher M. Dobmeier (M.A. SUNY, The University at Buffalo, 2020) is a doctoral student at the Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University. His research examines persuasive mechanisms in media psychology.

Nathan Walter

Nathan Walter (Ph.D. University of Southern California, 2018) is an associate professor at the Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University. His research focuses on cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional processes at the heart of media effects.