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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Second, the situation may change in the future. We do find evidence of a subset (19%) of socially radicalized respondents, who do avoid out-partisans. A small group of radicals can have destabilizing effects, even if society at large remains moderate. 16/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

We close with conjoints, where explicit information of partisanship is provided. A setting which, we maintain, remains rare in everyday life. Here, people express a wish to avoid profiles with out-partisan labels. Though note that strong out-partisans are avoided much more than moderates. 11/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

In each setting, partisanship is deemed relatively unimportant. Almost any other characteristic, from personality, to setting-specific traits, to most demographics, is considered more important than knowing whether a potential partner is a Republican or a Democrat. 10/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Next, we move to experimental evidence. First, we test whether people look for partisanship when it is invisible. We ask them about the relative importance of various characteristics of potential coworkers, neighbors or sports club partners, and run pairwise comparisons. 9/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

If they find out that their new acquaintance is an out-partisan, most people indicate not to care, or to avoid talking politics. In other survey questions, they indicate to be surrounded by out-partisans in various social environments, but to mostly not avoid them. 8/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

As the relationship unfolds, some people find out - at the same rate as religion. But 42% still don't know today, several months, or even a year after meeting for the first time. If partisanship drove relationship formation, you'd expect people to know and learn about it instantly. 7/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Invited to think about the last friend or acquaintance they made in real life, only 15% of respondents knew the partisanship of their new acquaintance during their first encounter. This is statistically indistinguishable from religion, another often invisible trait. 6/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

To test the role of partisanship in the process of relationship formation in the US, we ran two surveys (N = 5900), in November 2022 and July 2025. First, we introduce a novel survey module to trace knowledge and relevance of partisanship in the unfolding of new social relationships. 5/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

In contrast, when meeting a real person, partisanship may be invisible, or ambiguous. People can hide their politics, be moderately political, politically moderate, or cross-pressured. They may not care about politics, nor look for it. Therefore, partisanship may remain in the background. 4/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

When confronted with an out-partisan label in a survey, people often imagine stereotypical others – ideologically extreme and very politically involved. No wonder they express a strong desire to avoid them. 3/16

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Do ordinary Republicans and Democrats really avoid each other in everyday life? In a new working paper with Delia Baldassarri, we present descriptive and experimental evidence to challenge the view that partisanship drives the formation of social relationships. osf.io/preprints/so... 1/15

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Moreover, we show that 'seeing the other side', casual exposure to a politically diverse set of acquaintances, contributes to correcting the misperceptions that partly fuel animosity. We find both cross-sectional and experimental evidence in favor of this complementary mechanism

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Traditionally, close relationships are thought to buffer partisan animosity by exposing citizens to cross-cutting political discussion. We find that heterogeneous discussions still take place frequently, even during a contentious election, and still reduce partisan animosity

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Both out-partisan close relationships and out-partisan acquaintances are associated with lower partisan animosity. In the paper, we complement traditional measures of affective polarization with a behavioral-incentived experiment where expressing animosity costs respondents actual money.

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Nuancing worries about partisan echo chambers, we first show that both close relationships and acquaintances remain politically heterogeneous, even in today's polarized political climate. Especially acquaintance networks expose US citizens to more diverse political contexts

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

New publication in @sociologicalsci.bsky.social with Delia Baldassarri. We show that in the US, social relationships remain politically heterogeneous, and that heterogeneous close ties and acquaintances lower partisan animosity through distinct mechanisms. A thread on the main findings:

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Moreover, using difference-in-differences models, we show that an increase in network education levels is predictive of an increase in progressive immigration attitudes and feeling close to progressive parties, and a decrease in feeling close to far right parties.

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

This homogeneity matters for attitudes and voting: citizens with more tertiary-educated ties hold more progressive attitudes on immigration and the EU, are more likely to vote for progressive parties, and are less likely to vote for the far right

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Close relationships in the Netherlands show significant homogeneity by education levels. 40-50% of citizens do not report a single close relationship with a different education level, and more than 75% reports a mostly similarly-educated social network

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

In the latest issue of @cpsjournal.bsky.social, my article with Jonne Kamphorst in which we propose that educationally homogeneous social networks contribute to the stabilization of political conflict on the cultural dimension. A short thread on the main findings: Link: doi.org/10.1177/0010...

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

Finally, reported experiences of perspective-getting, feeling included in the discussion, commonality and reduced misperceptions are both widely reported, and are related to increased sympathy, but not to increased willingness to have discussions. (6/7)

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

I find no evidence that the discussion changed opinions. Remarkably, Conservative voters are found to soften their views just before the discussion, when asked to provide them publicly to their discussion partner. (5/7)

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

But: there's a limit to the love. As people's opinions were further apart, the depolarizing effect of the discussion decreased. Indeed, I suggest in the paper, unexpected agreement may be partly driving the salutary effects of these discussions in this article and in others. (4/7)

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

The discussion immediately increased sympathy for the other side, as well as willingness to have close out-partisan friends and willingness to have discussions. The latter effect was still visible 2-3 weeks later. (3/7)

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

I partnered up with an NGO to pair UK Labour and Conservative voters for a brief chat-based discussion on immigration or redistribution. We designed a setting where people could freely discuss and potentially disagree, refraining from providing moderation or discussion tips.👇 (2/7)

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Jona de Jong @jonadejong.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

Can cross-partisan discussions reduce political polarization? Even when people disagree? In a new publication, just out in Nature Communications Psychology, I study these questions with an experiment in the UK. www.nature.com/articles/s44271-023-…. (1/7)

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