Ep.004 - Depolarizing America: A Study of Mediated Group Reflection

Today’s episode is part of our Seminar Series, in which we facilitate discussions on work conducted by teams of academic researchers and practitioners that relates to one of four thematic topics: 1) Crime Reduction & Police Accountability, 2) Climate Change Governance, 3) Displacement, Migration, & Integration, and 4) Democracy, Conflict, & Polarization.

This episode focuses on Democracy, Conflict, & Polarization, presenting a discussion with researchers Hannah Baron (Brown University), Robert Blair (Brown University), and Jessica Gottlieb (University of Houston). Along with the research team, we are joined by Bill Doherty, co-founder of Braver Angels, a citizens’ organization uniting red and blue Americans in a working alliance to depolarize America. Braver Angels recently worked with the researchers to run a randomized controlled trial of workshops to study one model of depolarizing partisans—reciprocal group reflection, inspired by marital counseling—to find out whether it significantly reduces polarization according to explicit and implicit measures and increases participants’ support for depolarization. David Broockman, EGAP member and Associate Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, moderates the conversation.