Another explanatory reason for group polarization is the influence of social comparison. People have a tendency to like those who are similar to themselves.
It follows, then, that if people want to be liked by group members, one way to accomplish this is to have beliefs or attitudes that are consistent with those of the group. A number of things factor into whether making persuasive arguments or social comparisons will have a more polarizing effect on the group: the nature of the task judgmental vs.
Persuasive arguments tend to be most effective in situations in which the nature of the task is intellective, the group values accuracy more than cohesion, the individuals value accuracy more than cohesion, and private responses will be given.
Social comparisons tend to be most effective in the situations in which the nature of the task is judgmental, the group values cohesion more than accuracy, the individuals value cohesion more than accuracy, and public responses will be given.
The direction of the attitude shift is influenced by cultural variables. E-mail: warnerbe missouri. The results of quasi-experimental debate studies of all three presidential general election debates in , , , and as well as vice-presidential debates in and demonstrate a consistent effect; viewing a debate increased political polarization. However, pre-debate levels of polarization moderated this effect such that those viewers with very little polarization experienced the most significant increase and those who were highly polarized prior to viewing a debate experienced no significant change.
Overall, our findings contribute to a growing body of research on the polarizing effects of campaign communication and raise important questions about how these effects should be interpreted in future research. The role of presidential debates in the polarization process is unclear, however. While the digital media age is characterized by extremely high choice Prior, that allow individuals to seek information that reinforces existing attitudes, political debates are the most balanced messages many partisans will receive.
Both candidates present the best version of their arguments and viewers have a chance to see the most polished and persuasive case each candidate is capable of making. This does not necessarily mean that debates will reduce polarization though, as plenty of evidence suggests that partisans view attitude- discrepant information skeptically Coe et al.
We explore the polarizing potential of debates across multiple campaigns, including all three presidential election debates in , , , and , and vice-presidential debates in and In doing so, we are able to determine whether there is a general trend toward or against polarization from viewing a presidential debate, whether this effect is consistent across different debates and election cycles, and whether all debate viewers experience the same polarizing effects regardless of pre-debate attitudes.
The Effects of Debate Viewing Much of the discussion campaign debates receive focuses on whether a single debate will influence the outcome of an election Hu, Debate effects on vote choice are minimal, in part, because reactions are interpreted through the partisan beliefs that viewers bring to the debate Holbrook, ; Jarman, and thus viewers are likely to have their ideas reinforced by the candidate they support and dismiss counter-attitudinal information presented by the candidate they oppose.
While the conversation about presidential debates probably over-emphasizes the marginal but occasionally important influence they have on vote choice, Michael Pfau has argued that the most significant effects are on the normative democratic outcomes of debate viewing.
While democratic and electoral benefits of campaign debate viewing are numerous and well documented, there is some evidence that debates may also increase political polarization — a potentially insidious side effect of an event that may otherwise be the democratic high-point of a presidential campaign. These findings pose a troubling question for campaign debate scholars: Have we entered a new era of political polarization and, if so, do campaign debates — generally thought to be beneficial for democracy — further polarize the electorate?
A New Era of Polarization The extent to which America is polarized — or at least experiencing a period of increased polarization — is subject to some controversy. It is widely accepted that political elites are polarized at historically high levels. Ideological measures of members of the U. However, the extent to which Americans mirror the polarization of their elected officials is subject to some dispute. Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope argue that there are not fewer people describing themselves as moderate nor are more people describing themselves as strong partisans, and median opinions on hot-button social issues are not becoming more extreme.
Moderates, conversely, are more likely to opt out of politics, preferring entertainment media to the news Prior, Thus, our political discourse may be more polarized even if a majority of Americans do not consider themselves highly partisan. It is therefore important to know how and when political communication may exacerbate affective polarization.
The evolving media environment, driven by digital technology, has received the most scholarly attention — and blame — with reference to polarization. Digital media allow individuals to sort themselves into ideologically homogeneous networks that reinforce preexisting attitudes Sunstein, and increase polarization Stroud, Thus, it does not appear to be the case that citizens wall themselves off from difference by creating ideologically homogenous media cocoons.
Presidential debates do not offer viewers the opportunity to select only attitude-consistent messages but may be subject to the same biased processing identified in media effects research e. Coe et al. Debates, then, provide a unique opportunity to test whether balanced messaging can ameliorate the consequences of selective exposure or whether biased processing will diminish the value of exposure to balanced messages.
Biased processing may explain some of the media effects identified in recent studies of ideological media. If alternative perspectives are discounted through biased processing, those who use ideological media may become more extreme regardless of the diversity of their media diet. Altogether, these findings suggest that ideological media may be driving an increased era of political polarization. In addition to partisan media, polarization has also been linked to ideologically homogeneous interpersonal networks.
Random exposure to heterogeneity e. Polarization has also been connected to personality. In light of the great deal of scholarly attention devoted to polarization as an outcome of the changing media landscape, personal social networks, and even personality traits, it is surprising that there has not been more focus on how electoral campaign communication influences polarization.
Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes found that greater exposure to campaign messages primarily political ads increased polarization, but their study did not isolate specific campaign messages. Instead, they discuss the overall tone of political campaigns. Cho and Ha found an indirect effect of debate viewing in the election cycle on polarization mediated by increased conversation and news consumption after debate viewing. It is this finding that we seek to expand upon with the present study. Specifically, Cho and Ha examined partisan evaluations of candidates seven days after viewing a presidential debate and documented how viewing a campaign debate increased engagement in the broader campaign — thereby exposing debate viewers to a wider range of campaign communication.
Consistent with Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes , Cho and Ha found that people who are exposed to more campaign messages via news consumption and political talk express more polarized candidate evaluations. Debate viewing facilitated this outcome by motivating increased exposure to the campaign. While we expect a polarizing effect of debate viewing, it is not clear that debates will influence all viewers the same. Presidential debate scholars The Racine Group, have argued that we need to better understand how debate effects are achieved and under what conditions certain viewers will experience these debate effects.
Any polarizing effect of debate viewing should be tested for variability between different groups of viewers as individuals bring different attitudes to the debate. Some citizens enter a debate viewing experience with strong partisan preferences and are already highly polarized. Others may be partisan but not highly polarized, and still others may be undecided or express only slight candidate preferences. If, as previous research suggests, debates do polarize viewers, it is unclear whether they further flame the existing fervor of highly polarized voters, strengthen the preferences of weaker partisans, or engage those who enter the viewing with little preference.
We also seek to confirm the polarizing effect of debates beyond a single election. We therefore propose two additional research questions: RQ2: Does the effect of debate viewing on polarization vary by election cycle? RQ3: Does the effect of debate viewing on polarization vary from debate to debate? Method Sample Data for this study were compiled from the twelve presidential debates spanning the , , , and presidential elections as well as the and vice-presidential debates.
The combined analysis included a total of debate viewers. Across the four election cycles we had participants in , participants in , in , and in In total, participants viewed a presidential debate and viewed a vice-presidential debate.
The debate respondents included A plurality of the respondents identified with the Democratic Party Of the respondents,. The mean age of the respondents was Procedures A vast majority of the participants were undergraduate students from colleges and universities throughout the United States recruited by faculty researchers who served as members of the national presidential debate research team headed by the second author of this study.
In each waive of data collection participants viewed the debate while assembled in a lab environment such as a classroom, lecture hall, or other group viewing location.
Respondents completed a pretest questionnaire that included demographic information and a series of items assessing a variety of political attitudes. The respondents then watched the debate and, immediately following the debate, completed a posttest questionnaire that included repeated measures of candidate evaluation items. Each general election debate lasted 90 minutes. In and all questionnaires were administered with paper and pencil.
In approximately half of all participants completed the questionnaires via a web-based survey using personal laptops participants were asked to power down their laptops during debate viewing. In all participants completed the questionnaire online using either a laptop or other mobile computing device e. Participants were asked to indicate their overall feelings toward both the Democratic and Republican candidate before the debate, and then again afterward. To compute polarization from the feeling thermometer scores, the evaluation of the Republican candidate was subtracted from the evaluation of the Democratic candidate and the absolute value was taken.
In this way, 0 would represent no polarization at all an equal evaluation of both candidates and would represent absolute polarization where one candidate received a 0 — completely unfavorable and the other a — completely favorable. This approach is similar to polarization measures used in past research e. Combining all debates, the overall mean polarization score for the pretest was In both the pre and posttest the minimum observed score was 0 and the maximum was To test whether pretest levels of polarization moderated a potential main effect of debate viewing on polarization e.
RQ1 , an additional variable was created to divide the sample into three groups based on their pretest polarization: a highly polarized group, a somewhat polarized group, and a group of very low polarization. The three-group split was established via a 33 and 66 percentile cut. The low polarization group had scores ranging from 0 to 29 and included The medium polarization group had scores ranging from 30 to 59 and included The high polarization group had scores ranging from 60 to and included Results The first hypothesis predicted that viewing a presidential debate would increase political polarization.
Viewing debates significantly increased polarization, confirming the hypothesis. Polythene bags must be banned!
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Foreign aid is a dangerous drug that can stimulate in small doses but become fatally addictive in larger doses. Government should clean its own hands before pointing finger at the private sector for corruption. Reforms have to grow up. Globalization vs. McAran, D. Harvard Business Review, 87 5 , — McDougall, P. International entrepreneurship: The intersection of two research paths.
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