Report
Study Shows How Talking Can Change Political Views
Why this matters
A project called 'Bring It to The Table' studied whether talking with people who have different political views can change how we see each other. This research suggests that when people take time to really listen to each other, they can find common ground and reduce the anger and division we see in politics today.
Overview
A project called 'Bring It to The Table' studied whether talking with people who have different political views can change how we see each other. They worked with about 1,000 people across the country who attended special events where they watched a film and had guided discussions about politics. Before and after each event, people answered questions about what they think of conservatives and liberals. The results showed something interesting: after talking together for two hours, people's views became less extreme. People on both sides started to see the 'other side' as less clueless and more open-minded than they thought before. The study also found that people's actual opinions on issues like climate change, gun control, and healthcare don't always match what their political party believes. Many people have more moderate views than the extreme positions we see in politics. This research suggests that when people take time to really listen to each other, they can find common ground and reduce the anger and division we see in politics today. The project used a special app called Harvis to collect anonymous answers so people would be honest about their real feelings.
{"full_text":"Data — Bring It to The Table \n\nData\n\nParticipants at Bring It events were asked to share three words to describe what influences their vote. \n\nTHE DATA IS IN\n\nOne of the toughest challenges for social impact projects is determining whether or not you’ve made a difference. While it’s easy to tally the number of times a film has streamed or the shares on Facebook, how do we measure shifts in attitude?
Bring It to The Table set out to support civil discourse so people would be more willing—and able—to reach across the partisan divide. Our goal is to get people to examine their own biases and become the change they want to see in restoring civility. \n\nBring It to The Table partnered with A Fourth Act to develop a customized version of Harvis that would help us peek inside the partisan identities and assumptions held by people who attend our live interactive events.
The app enables everyone in the audience to become a participant, while helping us gauge whether the project is having its desired impact. \n\nThe charts below reveal what we’ve found from a sample of roughly 1,000 participants across the country. \n\nPremise of our project\n\nThe current political climate pits citizen against citizen and elevates party above country.
We speculate that individuals’ beliefs are far more complex than a two-party system allows. We believe that between our film and live Table Talks, it is possible to break the cycle of demonizing the political ‘other’ in order to generate self-awareness, personal agency and common ground in reversing the current trend. \n\nResults\n\nAfter asking participants to share their own political identities, we established a horizontal axis that captures the degree to which respondents align along the left/right spectrum.
We then asked a series of questions designed to reveal the implicit biases we carry about people who align and don’t align with our party identity. These biases were measured before and after the presentation. Use the slider to swipe between the before and after on each data set.
\n\nConservatives: Clueless or Knowledgeable? \n\nThe charts all demonstrate a significant shift in attitude after a two-hour Bring It event. All four charts reveal a consolidation toward the center, implying that there was an overall modification in the group’s attitude away from the extreme edges.
\n\nRecognizing personal biases can potentially create space for civil discourse. By acknowledging that the political ‘other’ isn’t as clueless or close-minded as you previously assumed, you are more likely to invite conversation and gain greater awareness of diverse perspectives. \n\nLiberals: Clueless/Knowledgeable\n\nLiberals: Uncompromising/Open-Minded\n\nIssues versus Parties\n\nDo people’s party affiliations accurately reflect their stance on the issues?
We chose five hot-button topics to see where participants aligned: climate change, same-sex marriage, the Affordable Care Act, gun control and immigration. \n\nThe grey line across each chart shows the statistical mean, where party identity is juxtaposed with respondents’ conservative/liberal stance on the issue. If people aligned fully with their partisan identities, the lines would run from the lower left corner (extremely liberal) diagonally to the upper right corner (extremely conservative).
On the contrary, every line nears a zero-degree angle, with same-sex marriage showing an inverted trend. The overall takeaway from these charts reveals a more moderate approach to the issues than the extreme rhetoric of party politics. \n\n Click tabs to see the corresponding graph.
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