The role of topic choice in cross-partisan conversations

Affective polarization in the United States—animosity between Republicans and Democrats—has escalated for decades, threatening the health of American democracy. Intergroup Contact Theory suggests that talking across party lines can reduce polarization, yet recent studies disagree on whether confronting or avoiding political disagreement is the more effective strategy for cross-partisan conversation. We address this debate using a large-scale “integrative” experiment that systematically varies levels of disagreement and political relevance across a diverse set of topics. While some discussion topics reduced affective polarization more than others, these differences were not explained by how “political” the topics were or how much participants disagreed. In fact, variation within topics far exceeds variation between them. Participant reports suggest that how individuals engage with one another—through listening, openness, and perspective-taking—may play a larger role in shaping conversational success than either the topic itself or the extent of disagreement.