Bridging the Divide or Intensifying the Conflict? How Disagreement Affects Strong Predilections about Sexual Minorities

Political Psychology

Volumn 31, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 315-339

  Wojcieszak, Magdalena ^a   Price, Vincent ^b  

^a IE UNIVERSITY   (Spain)

^b UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Attitude polarization; Deliberation; Online communication; Political disagreement; Political discussion; Same sex marriage

Indexed keywords

EID: 77953971855     PISSN: 0162895X     EISSN: 14679221     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00753.x     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Arendt H. The human condition 1958, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
2. Baker J K. Same-sex marriage: Recent trends in public opinion 2005, Washington, DC, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy
3. Barber B. Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age 1984, Berkeley, University of California Press
4. Barker D, Hansen S B. All things considered: Systematic cognitive processing and electoral decision-making. Journal of Politics 2005, 67:319-344.
5. Bowman K, O'Keefe B. Attitudes about homosexuality and gay marriage 2005, Washington, DC, American Enterprise Institute
6. Brewer P R. The shifting foundations of public opinion about gay rights. Journal of Politics 2003a, 65:1208-1220.
7. Brewer P R. Values, political knowledge, and public opinion about gay rights: A framing based account. Public Opinion Quarterly 2003b, 67:173-201.
8. Brewer P R, Wilcox C. Trends: Same-sex marriage and civil unions. Public Opinion Quarterly 2005, 69:599-616.
9. Cohen J, Cohen P, West S G, Aiken L S. Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavior sciences 2003, 3rd, ed., Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
10. D'Agostino R B. Tutorial in biostatistics: Propensity scoring methods of bias reduction in the comparison of a treatment to a non-randomized control group. Statistics in Medicine 1998, 17:2265-2281.
11. Dahl R A. Democracy and its critics 1989, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press
12. Delli Carpini M X, Cook F L, Jacobs L R. Public deliberation, discursive participation, and citizen engagement: A review of the empirical literature. Annual Reviews of Political Science 2004, 7:315-344.
13. Ditto P H, Lopez D F. Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1992, 63(4):568-584.
14. Evans J. Have Americans' attitudes become more polarized?-An update. Social Science Quarterly 2003, 84:71-90.
15. Fazio R H, Williams C J. Attitude accessibility as a moderator of the attitude-perception and attitude-behavior relations: An investigation of the 1984 presidential election. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, 51:505-514.
16. Festinger L, Riecken H, Schachter S. When prophecy fails 1956, New York, Harper and Row
17. Garramone G, Atkin C, Pinkleton B, Cole R. Effects of negative political advertising on the political process. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 1990, 34:299-311.
18. Gastil J, Dillard J P. Increasing political sophistication through public deliberation. Political Communication 1999, 16:3-23.
19. Gordon C A, Tadlock B L, Popp E. Framing the issue of same-sex marriage: Traditional values versus equal rights. 2004, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association
20. Goldberg C. Forced into action on gay marriage, Vermont finds itself deeply split: New York Times. 2000, February 3
21. Goldman S, Brewer P. From gay bashing to gay baiting: Public opinion and news media frames for gay marriage. Defending same-sex marriage, Volume III: The Freedom-to-Marry Movement: Education, advocacy, culture, and the media 2007, 103-128. Strasser M, Dupuis MThompson W. Volume III Eds., Westport, CT, Praeger Publishing
22. Gutmann A, Thompson D. Democracy and disagreement 1996, Cambridge, MA, Harvard, Belknap Press
23. Habermas J. The structural transformation of the public sphere 1989, T. Burger, Trans, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press
24. Isenberg D J. Group polarization: A critical review and meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, 50:1141-1151.
25. Jost J T, Glaser J, Kruglanski A W, Sulloway F J. Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin 2003, 129:339-375.
26. Keppel G, Wickens T D. Design and analysis: A researcher's handbook 2004, 4th, ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Prentice Hall
27. Kuhn D. Children and adults as intuitive scientists. Psychological Review 1989, 96:674-689.
28. Kunda Z. The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 1990, 108:480-498.
29. Knuckey J. Moral values and vote choice in 2004 presidential election. Politics & Policy 2007, 32:222-245.
30. Laughlin P R, Earley P C. Social combination models, persuasive arguments theory, social comparison theory, and choice shift. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1982, 42:273-280.
31. Levine J M, Russo E. Impact of anticipated interaction on information acquisition. Social Cognition 1995, 13:293-317.
32. Linville P. The complexity-extremity effect and age-based stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1982, 42:193-211.
33. Lord C, Ross M, Lepper M. Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1979, 27:2098-2109.
34. Lowell A L. Public opinion and popular government 1913, New York, Longmans, Green
35. Lush T. Groups face off over right to marry 1999, August 4, Burlington, VT, Burlington Free Press
36. Machado C, Machado A. Marriage matters: Sharing our stories. 2007, http://www.freedomtomarry.org/document.asp?id=4999, Available at
37. Mansbridge J. Beyond adversary democracy 1983, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
38. McDevitt M, Kiousis S, Wahl-Jorgensen K. Spiral of moderation: Opinion expression in computer-mediated discussion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 2003, 15:454-470.
39. McHoskey J. Case closed? On the John F. Kennedy assassination: Biased assimilation of evidence and attitude polarization. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 1995, 17:395-409.
40. McLeod J, Scheufele D, Moy P, Horowitz E, Holbert R, Zhang W, Zubrick S, Zubric J. Understanding deliberation: The effects of discussion networks on participation in a public forum. Communication Research 1999, 26:743-774.
41. Meffert M F, Chung S, Joiner A J, Waks L, Garst J. The effects of negativity and motivated information processing during a political campaign. Journal of Communication 2006, 56:27-51.
42. Meffert M F, Guge M, Lodge M. Good, bad, and ambivalent: The consequences of multidimensional political attitudes. Studies in public opinion: Attitudes, nonattitudes, measurement error and change 2004, 63-92. Saris W E, Sniderman P, Eds., Princeton, NJ, University of Princeton Press
43. Mendelberg T. The deliberative citizen: Theory and evidence. Research in micropolitics: Political decisionmaking, deliberation and participation 2002, 151-193. Delli Carpini MHuddy LShapiro R. Eds., Greenwich, CT, JAI Press
44. Mendelberg T, Oleske J. Race and public deliberation. Political Communication 2000, 17:169-191.
45. Merelman R, Streich G, Martin P. Unity and diversity in American political culture: An exploratory study of the National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity. Political Psychology 1998, 19:781-808.
46. Moscovici S, Zavalloni M. The group as a polarizer of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1969, 12:125-135.
47. Munro G D, Ditto P H, Lockhart L K, Fagerlin A, Gready M, Peterson E. Biased assimilation of sociopolitical arguments: Evaluating the 1996 U.S. presidential debate. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 2002, 24:15-26.
48. Munro G D, Ditto P H. Biased assimilation, attitude polarization, and affect in reactions to stereotype-relevant scientific information. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1997, 23:636-653.
49. Mutz D C. Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice. American Political Science Review 2002, 96:111-126.
50. Mutz D C. Is deliberative democracy a falsifiable theory? Annual Review of Political Science 2008, 11:521-538.
51. Mutz D C, Mondak J J. The workplace as a context for cross-cutting political discourse. The Journal of Politics 2006, 68:140-155.
52. Myers D G. Discussion induced attitude polarization. Human Relations 1975, 28:699-714.
53. Myers D G, Lamm H. The group polarization phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin 1976, 83:602-627.
54. Nickerson R S. Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology 1998, 2:175-220.
55. O'Flynn I. Deliberative democracy and divided societies 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland, Edinburgh University Press
56. Page B I. Who deliberates? Mass media in modern democracy 1996, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
57. Petty R E, Cacioppo J T. Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing message-relevant cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1979, 37:1915-1926.
58. Republicans unified, Democrats split on same-sex marriage; religious beliefs underpin opposition to homosexuality. 2003, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Washington, DC: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
59. Postmes T, Spears R, Lea M. Breaching or building social boundaries? SIDE-effects of computer mediated communication. Communication Research 1998, 25(6):689-715.
60. Price V, Cappella J N. Online deliberation and its influence: The Electronic Dialogue Project in campaign 2000. IT and Society 2002, 1:303-328.
61. Price V, Cappella J N, Nir L. Does disagreement contribute to more deliberative opinion? Political Communication 2002, 19:97-114.
62. Price V, Nir L, Cappella J. Framing public discussion of gay civil unions. Public Opinion Quarterly 2005, 69:179-212.
63. Rosenbaum P R, Rubin D B. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika 1983, 70:41-55.
64. Rosenberg S. An empirical study of types of democratic deliberation: The limits and potential of citizen participation. 2006, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia
65. Ross L, Greene D, House P. The false consensus effect: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1977, 13:279-301.
66. Sinclair L, Kunda Z. Motivated stereotyping of women: She's fine if she praised me, but incompetent if she criticized me. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull 2000, 26:329-342.
67. Sherif M, Hovland C. Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude change 1961, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press
68. Sniderman P M. A question of loyalty 1981, Berkeley, University of California Press
69. Taber C, Lodge M. Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 2006, 50:755-769.
70. Thompson D. Deliberative democratic theory and empirical political science. Annual Review of Political Science 2008, 11:497-520.
71. Turner J C. Social influence 1991, Pacific Grove, CA, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company
72. Vinokur A, Burnstein E. Depolarization of attitudes in groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1978, 36:872-885.
73. Zdaniuk B, Levine J M. Anticipated interaction and thought generation: The role of faction size. British Journal of Social Psychology. Special Issue: Minority influences 1996, 35:201-218.