Affective polarization is on the rise, not least in the United States. Recent scholarship has identified meta-perceptions, concerning how much opposing partisans think they dislike each other, as a potential driver of actual interparty animosity. I theorize that social media content shapes people’s political meta-perceptions, which in turn influence affective polarization. I integrate prior work on meta-perceptions with research on intergroup conflict and social norms to distinguish perceptions about people’s ingroup from perceptions about their outgroup. A probability sample ( n = 825) shows outgroup meta-perceptions (i.e., perceptions about the outparty’s feelings toward the inparty) are linked to actual affective polarization. Ingroup meta-perceptions do not predict affective polarization above and beyond outgroup meta-perceptions. An original experiment ( n = 541) then examines the proposed causal pathway by exposing subjects to politically unifying, divisive, or neutral media content. In line with the proposed model, unifying content reduces affective polarization, and this effect is mediated by political meta-perceptions. Surprisingly, divisive content has no effects on meta-perceptions or affective polarization. These findings have theoretical implications for research on social media, perceptions, and intergroup relations. These, as well as practical implications, are discussed in light of mounting concerns about increasing affective polarization and the role social media may play in exacerbating it.

中文翻译：

---

美国的情感两极分化：社交媒体如何塑造元感知和情感两极分化

情感两极分化正在加剧，尤其是在美国。最近的学术研究发现，元认知（即对立党派认为自己不喜欢对方的程度）是实际党派间敌意的潜在驱动因素。我认为社交媒体内容塑造了人们的政治元认知，进而影响情感两极分化。我将之前关于元感知的研究与对群体间冲突和社会规范的研究结合起来，以区分人们对内群体的看法和对外群体的看法。概率样本（n = 825）显示外群体的元感知（即外群体对内群体的感受的感知）与实际的情感极化相关。内群体元感知并不能预测外群体元感知之上和之外的情感极化。然后，一项原始实验（n = 541）通过让受试者接触政治统一、分裂或中立的媒体内容来检查所提出的因果路径。根据所提出的模型，统一内容减少了情感两极分化，这种效应是由政治元感知调节的。令人惊讶的是，分裂内容对元感知或情感极化没有影响。这些发现对于社交媒体、认知和群体间关系的研究具有理论意义。鉴于人们对日益加剧的情感两极分化以及社交媒体可能在加剧这种两极分化方面发挥的作用的日益担忧，我们讨论了这些以及实际影响。