Polarization

A key factor that instigates and perpetuates intergroup conflict is people’s support for violence against the outgroup. In this Review, Saguy and Reifen-Tagar consider the sources of support for violent conflict: basic cognitive-motivational roots, personal inclinations, group-level influences, situational influences and post-hoc justifications of violence.

Democracy is at risk when citizens become so polarized that an ‘us versus them’ mentality dominates. In this Review, Jost et al. provide a conceptual framework that integrates scientific knowledge about cognitive–motivational mechanisms that influence political polarization and the social-communicative contexts in which they are enacted.

Here, using longitudinal survey and Twitter data, the authors examine the relationship between exposure to Russian Internet Research Agency activities on Twitter and voting behavior and attitudes in the 2016 US election.

People tend to feel less empathy toward people who do not belong to their social group (outgroup members). Here, the authors show that leading people to believe that empathy is unlimited increases empathy, support for prosocial actions, and empathic behaviors toward outgroup members.

Misinformation online can be shared by major political figures and organizations. Here, the authors developed a method to measure exposure to information from these sources on Twitter, and show how exposure relates to the quality of the content people share and their political ideology.

Prompting people to consider accuracy can improve the quality of news they share online. Here, using an internal meta-analysis, the authors show that this effect is replicable and generalizes across headlines, types of accuracy prompt, and various participant characteristics.

Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.

Understanding motivations underlying acts of hatred are essential for developing strategies to prevent such acts against marginalized groups. Here the authors show that group-based moral values are associated with tendency to justify extreme behavioural expressions of prejudice.

Here, the authors show that an integrative thinking process linked philosophically to wisdom may reduce group polarization. Specifically, wise reasoning improves intergroup attitudes and behavior even at time of heightened societal conflicts.

Performance on a cognitive reflection test correlates with a wide range of behaviours in survey studies. Here the authors investigate the relationship between cognitive reflection and some aspects of actual behaviour on social media.

Hesitancy and resistance towards vaccination is a challenge for public health. Here the authors determine psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy or resistance attitudes in the UK and Ireland.