Building Bridges Project (data and R File)

This study examines whether emphasizing a cross-cutting non-political identity within the framework of the Common Ingroup Identity Model (CIIM) can improve outpartisan relations, using an imagined contact survey experiment to 733 respondents across the United States. Building on the argument that cross-cutting ties can bridge divisions between outgroup members, we hypothesize that Americans primed to think about a cross-cutting non-political identity (e.g., shared hobby) will evaluate members of the opposing party more positively. However, our findings reveal that emphasizing a cross-cutting non-political identity does not improve attitudes toward or willingness to interact with outpartisan members. Instead, we find that invoking a shared hobby negatively affects outpartisan behaviors: individuals exposed to the shared hobby treatment were less willing to engage in conversations or activities with outpartisan members. This effect was especially prominent among those who identified strongly with their partisan identity. These results suggest that in politically polarized contexts like the United States, among individuals who strongly identify with their party, cross-cutting identities may backfire, deepening rather than bridging intergroup divisions.