Study: Does Exposure to Alternative Views Create Greater Understanding Or Backfire

[osewalrus]

 The study was explicitly about social media, as distinguished from in person meetings. The results are interesting, but need to be understood based on the qualifications.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/27/1804840115.full

Structure, Republicans agree to follow a liberal bot, which would retweet from a pool of liberal thought leaders/elites.

Democrats agrees to follow a conservative bot.

Result: After a month of exposure, Republicans exposed to liberals became much more conservative. Liberal exposed to conservatives were slightly more liberal, but the effect was much smaller.

Comments

[vettecat]

Seems to agree with some other recent studies saying that explosure to opposing information just makes people dig in further. Which is very discouraging.

[magid]

Yeah, social media is not the way to influence people; in person interactions are more difficult, but more potential for utility.