Organizations, activists, and scholars hope that conversations between outpartisans (supporters of opposing political parties) can reduce affective polarization (dislike of outpartisans) and bolster democratic accountability (e.g., support for democratic norms). We argue that such conversations can reduce affective polarization but that these effects are likely to be conditional on topic, being especially likely if the conversations topics avoid discussion of areas of disagreement; usually not persist long-term; and be circumscribed, not affecting attitudes toward democratic accountability. We support this argument with two unique experiments where we paired outpartisan strangers to discuss randomly assigned topics over video calls. In study 1, we found that conversations between outpartisans about their perfect day dramatically decreased affective polarization, although these impacts decayed long-term. Study 2 also included conversations focusing on disagreement (e.g., why each supports their own party), which had no effects. Both studies found little change in attitudes related to democratic accountability.

中文翻译：

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跨党派对话减少情感极化的承诺和陷阱：来自随机实验的证据

组织、活动家和学者希望党外人士（反对政党的支持者）之间的对话可以减少情感两极分化（不喜欢党外人士）并加强民主问责制（例如，支持民主规范）。我们认为此类对话可以减少情感两极分化，但这些影响可能取决于主题，如果对话主题避免讨论分歧领域，则尤其可能；通常不会长期坚持；并受到限制，而不影响对民主问责制的态度。我们通过两个独特的实验来支持这一论点，在这些实验中，我们将无党派的陌生人配对，通过视频通话讨论随机分配的主题。在研究 1 中，我们发现，党外人士之间关于他们完美的一天的对话显着减少了情感两极分化，尽管这些影响会长期衰减。研究 2 还包括关注分歧的对话（例如，为什么每个人都支持自己的政党），但没有效果。两项研究都发现与民主问责制相关的态度几乎没有变化。