The research supported by this grant helps us better understand the facets of social interactions about politics that are stress-inducing and lead to adverse outcomes, such as information distortion, political disengagement, and psychological polarization. 

Put simply, interpersonal political interaction is stressful. Individuals show an increase in heart rate and electrodermal activity when just thinking about communicating about politics with others, as well as when they actually engage in a political discussion. Our research suggests that the level of disagreement in a conversation and informational asymmetries are the most stress-inducing elements of a political discussion, and that people are concerned both about being judged themselves as well as making others uncomfortable. Clashing political identities—in addition to clashing political opinions—are stress-inducing and lead people to withhold their true political viewpoints from a discussion group, especially when they are in a minority (Carlson and Settle 2016). 

Unpacking the emotional, psychological, and physiological experience of a political discussion has important implications for other political behaviors. Individual differences in personality, social anxiety, and psychophysiological response affect engagement in political discussions, preferences for agreement in discussion networks, and social forms of campaign activity. In particular, individuals who are more socially anxious and more physiologically reactive to political discussions are less likely to engage in political discussions and are more likely to prune their social networks to include only those who share their partisanship. They shy away from interacting with others in the political sphere more generally.

We reveal previously hidden aggregate consequences of stressful sociopolitical interaction. Of particular importance is the role of information transmission. Word of mouth is the second most common form of acquiring information about politics in the United States. However, our research has shown that socially communicated political information is quite distorted from information communicated by the media (Carlson 2017). What is more, the key assumption for effective social information transmission is that individuals turn to others who are (1) more knowledgeable and (2) share their preferences. We show that people are uncomfortable in discussions with information asymmetries, and as a result, individuals are less likely to interpret information correctly.

We also demonstrate the far-reaching problems of political communication on the social media site Facebook, particularly as related to psychological polarization. Facebook users recognize a wide variety of content as being about politics. They make inferences about the political views of their social connections, based on both the political and apolitical content their Facebook friends post. Users attribute unwarranted ideological coherence and extremity to partisans on the other side of the aisle. Features embedded within the Facebook site further exacerbate these cognitive biases, leading people to believe that their own opinions are in the majority. This perpetuates false polarization—the perception of larger differences between the political parties than exist in reality. Facebook users, compared to those who don’t use the site, are more judgmental about the political competence of the people with whom they disagree, and they recognize more social differences between members of the two political parties. They also preferentially select co-partisans as friends and distance themselves from their disagreeable social connections.

The grant supported us in widely disseminating the findings of our research. We anticipate that the grant will ultimately have supported two book manuscripts, five journal articles, a dozen conference presentations, and two blog posts.

This grant also facilitated us in creating an infrastructure to further the study of political psychophysiology. We acquired psychophysiological equipment that will allow us to continue conducting research and pushing the field forward for years to come. We built a cohesive network of scholars interested in political psychophysiology. We co-hosted two political psychophysiology workshops where we connected with the head researchers in other political psychophysiology labs around the United States. We worked together to share our work, discuss the direction of the field, and, most importantly, develop a common set of best practices for psychophysiology research. Research in this field has many start-up costs, both in terms of purchasing expensive equipment and time spent learning how to use that equipment properly, analyze the data, and interpret the data for a broader audience. We have collaborated to draft an article (under review) that serves as a primer for both producers and consumers of psychophysiology research in political science.  Finally, beyond fostering relationships with graduate students and faculty, this grant allowed us to incorporate dozens of undergraduate students into the research process. 

Publications Produced as a Result of this Research (as of 11/2017)

1. Carlson, Taylor N. and Jaime E. Settle. 2016. "Political Chameleons: An Exploration of Conformity in Political Discussions." Political Behavior 38(4): 817-859.  (doi: 10.1007/s11109-016-9335- y)

2. Carlson, Taylor N.  "Modeling Political Information Transmission as a Game of Telephone." Forthcoming in The Journal of Politics.

3. Settle, Jaime E. Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America. Forthcoming book published by Cambridge University Press, anticipated 2018

Last Modified: 11/28/2017
Modified by: Jaime E Settle