Exposure to Opposing Views can Increase Political Polarization

Ezra Klein's book "Why We're Polarized" addressed this study.

As has been said, humans are not rational animals, we are rationalizing animals.

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/NSESEH

Bail, Christopher, 2018, "Exposure to Opposing Views can Increase Political Polarization", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NSESEH, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:MY191O/vIYodgP6fI7hcsA== [fileUNF]


ABSTRACT There is mounting concern that social media sites contribute to political polarization by creating “echo chambers” that insulate people from opposing views about current events. We surveyed a large sample of Democrats and Republicans who visit Twitter at least three times each week about a range of social policy issues. One week later, we randomly assigned respondents to a treatment condition in which they were offered financial incentives to follow a Twitter bot for 1 mo that exposed them to messages from those with opposing political ideologies (e.g., elected officials, opinion leaders, media organizations, and nonprofit groups). Respondents were resurveyed at the end of the month to measure the effect of this treatment, and at regular intervals throughout the study period to monitor treatment compliance. We find that Republicans who followed a liberal Twitter bot became substantially more conservative posttreatment. Democrats exhibited slight increases in liberal attitudes after following a conservative Twitter bot, although these effects are not statistically significant.