ABSTRACT We advance interparty contact as a remedy to affective polarization and examine the processes through which interparty contact attenuates the hostility between Democrats and Republicans. We present results from three studies: (1) a survey examining the association between outparty friendships and affective polarization (cross-validated with a representative data from Pew Research Center), and two experiments, testing the effects of (2) vicarious and (3) imagined contact on affective polarization. We find that interparty contact attenuates outparty hostility primarily indirectly, through perceived commonality between the self and the outgroup, and not through the common mediators of contact, anxiety and empathy. We also show that cooperative interparty interactions – whether imagined or vicarious – have limited advantage over simple positive contact (studies 2 and 3), that negative interparty contact exacerbates outgroup hostility by enhancing anxiety and reducing empathy (study 2), and that interactions with one’s political in group are not necessarily polarizing (study 3). These results underscore the differences between partisanship and other social group identities, and have important theoretical implications for the intergroup contact literature.

中文翻译：

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党际接触可以减少情感极化吗？不同形式的群际接触的系统测试

摘要 我们将党际接触作为情感两极分化的补救措施，并研究党际接触减弱民主党和共和党之间敌意的过程。我们展示了三项研究的结果：（1）一项调查外部友谊与情感极化之间的关联（与皮尤研究中心的代表性数据交叉验证），以及两个实验，测试（2）替代和（3 ) 情感极化的想象接触。我们发现，党际接触主要是通过自我和外群体之间感知到的共性，而不是通过接触、焦虑和同理心等共同中介来间接减弱党外敌意。我们还表明，合作的党际互动——无论是想象的还是替代的——比简单的积极接触（研究 2 和 3）的优势有限，消极的党际接触通过增强焦虑和减少同理心（研究 2）来加剧外群体的敌意（研究 2）。群体中的政治不一定是两极分化的（研究 3）。这些结果强调了党派性和其他社会群体身份之间的差异，并对群体间联系文献具有重要的理论意义。