An Online experiment during the 2020 US-Iran crisis shows that exposure to common enemies can increase political polarization.

ABSTRACT: A longstanding theory indicates that the threat of a common enemy can mitigate conflict between members of rival groups. We tested this hypothesis in a pre-registered experiment where 1670 Republicans and Democrats in the United States were asked to complete an online social learning task with a bot that was labeled as a member of the opposing party. Prior to this task, we exposed respondents to primes about (a) a common enemy (involving Iran 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 priming, we found that Republicans-and particularly those with very strong conservative views-were significantly less likely to learn from Democrats when primed about a common enemy. Because

SUBMITTER: Jahani E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9652360 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature