 How in-person conversations shape political polarization: Quasi-experimental evidence from a nationwide initiativeXimeng Fang, Sven Heuser and Lasse S. Stötzer Journal of Public Economics, 2025, vol. 242, issue C Abstract: Growing political polarization is often attributed to “echo chambers” among like-minded individuals and a lack of social interactions among contrary-minded individuals. We provide quasi-experimental evidence on the effects of in-person conversations on individual-level polarization outcomes, studying a large-scale intervention in Germany that matched pairs of strangers for private face-to-face meetings to discuss divisive political issues. We find asymmetric effects: conversations with like-minded individuals caused political views to become more extreme (ideological polarization); by contrast, conversations with contrary-minded individuals did not lead to a convergence of political views, but significantly reduced negative beliefs and attitudes toward ideological out-group members (affective polarization), while also improving perceived social cohesion more generally. These effects of contrary-minded conversations seem to be driven mostly by positive experiences of interpersonal contact. Keywords: Polarization; Intergroup contact; Behavioral political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:242:y:2025:i:c:s0047272725000076 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105309 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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