Partisan animosity through the lens of blame: Partisan animosity can be reduced by a historicist thinking intervention.

ABSTRACT: Partisan animosity has been on the rise in America. Partisan animosity involves blame, wherein political partisans blame outparty members for their beliefs and actions. Here, we examine whether a historicist thinking intervention-drawn from research on blame mitigation-can reduce partisan animosity. The intervention consisted of three components: (1) a narrative about the idiosyncratic development of one political opponent paired with (2) a message about how unique life experiences shape everyone's political beliefs and (3) a suggestion that outparty members can be changed by future formative experiences. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the intervention reduced cold feelings-measured via Feeling Thermometer-towards the outparty for both Democrats and Republicans. Experiments 3 and 4 focuse

SUBMITTER: Alam R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10781133 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature