Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Science. 2024 Oct 18;386(6719):eadh4764. doi: 10.1126/science.adh4764.
Scholars warn that partisan divisions in the mass public threaten the health of American democracy. We conducted a megastudy ( = 32,059 participants) testing 25 treatments designed by academics and practitioners to reduce Americans' partisan animosity and antidemocratic attitudes. We find that many treatments reduced partisan animosity, most strongly by highlighting relatable sympathetic individuals with different political beliefs or by emphasizing common identities shared by rival partisans. We also identify several treatments that reduced support for undemocratic practices-most strongly by correcting misperceptions of rival partisans' views or highlighting the threat of democratic collapse-which shows that antidemocratic attitudes are not intractable. Taken together, the study's findings identify promising general strategies for reducing partisan division and improving democratic attitudes, shedding theoretical light on challenges facing American democracy.
学者警告说,大众群体中的党派分歧威胁着美国民主的健康。我们进行了一项大规模研究(= 32059 名参与者),测试了由学者和从业者设计的 25 种治疗方法,以减少美国人的党派敌意和反民主态度。我们发现,许多治疗方法降低了党派敌意,通过突出具有不同政治信仰的可共鸣的同情者或强调对立党派共同的身份认同,效果最为明显。我们还发现了几种可以降低对不民主做法的支持的方法——通过纠正对对立党派观点的误解或强调民主崩溃的威胁,效果最为明显——这表明反民主态度并非不可改变。总的来说,这项研究的结果为减少党派分歧和改善民主态度确定了有希望的一般策略,为美国民主面临的挑战提供了理论上的启示。