Americans are so polarised that a common enemy may no longer unite them, study finds
- Report suggests politicisation could even divide the citizenry further when encountering a foreign threat
- Research focused on reactions of 1,670 Republicans and Democrats at the time of the 2020 US attack that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani
Americans have become so politically polarised that a common enemy could no longer unite them and may actually further divide them, new research suggests.
Conflicts between Republicans and Democrats were not reduced when they were exposed to a shared external threat, an online study conducted during the 2020 US–Iran crisis shows.
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Instead, the study found that a common enemy – both in media reports and in real-world events – triggered among Republicans a deeper distrust of Democrats than they started out with. Democrats did not show a similar inclination.
“These results suggest that political narratives about global, combative conflicts – which politicians often invoke to rally patriotic support – may have the unintended consequence of increasing polarisation within a nation.”
The study was designed by psychologists and sociologists from the University of California, Berkeley; Princeton; and the University of Copenhagen, among other institutions. It surveyed 1,670 Republicans and Democrats between October 2019 and January 2020 and tested their attitudes toward the opposing party after being exposed to neutral information, patriotic information or information about foreign enemies.
