Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Political polarization is as strong as ever in this modern political climate. Part of this polarization is that people are being more selective than ever when choosing who to socially interact with. Our presentation will discuss research on how increasing political polarization impacts people's willingness to engage in friendships and romantic relationships with people who have opposing political views. We will also discuss the success of those friendships and relationships as a function of political differences. We will also discuss our research that demonstrates that people who are more invested in politics are particularly selective in seeking like-minded romantic partners. An experiment also tests whether people will be extra selective in seeking likeminded romantic partners when the political climate is discouraging their group relative to conditions where the political climate is hopeful for their group.
Date
11-7-2026
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
presentations
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Relationships Across the Aisle: How Political Climates Impact Friendships and Relationships with People of Different Political Affiliations
Political polarization is as strong as ever in this modern political climate. Part of this polarization is that people are being more selective than ever when choosing who to socially interact with. Our presentation will discuss research on how increasing political polarization impacts people's willingness to engage in friendships and romantic relationships with people who have opposing political views. We will also discuss the success of those friendships and relationships as a function of political differences. We will also discuss our research that demonstrates that people who are more invested in politics are particularly selective in seeking like-minded romantic partners. An experiment also tests whether people will be extra selective in seeking likeminded romantic partners when the political climate is discouraging their group relative to conditions where the political climate is hopeful for their group.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology