(This post was updated on 04/22/23)
A major new study out of Stanford University proves that Civity’s relational approach to connecting people across differences can strengthen democracy and reduce polarization by building social trust and fostering connection across difference.
The Strengthening Democracy Challenge (SDC) – the largest social science experiment of its kind – measured several factors related to partisanship and political distrust. The results show that the act of engaging in the simple practice of civity – of seeing humanity in an other – reduces partisan polarization.
The study found that Civity’s eight-minute digital intervention – Civity Storytelling: Expanding the Pool of People Who Matter – was:
- #1 at increasing social trust;
- #2 at decreasing opposition to bipartisanship;
- #2 in decreasing social distance – when people avoid being near someone of the other party; and
- One of the top interventions for reducing partisan animosity (#4).
Civity Storytelling also:
- Reduced support for un-democratic practices;
- Was #4 in decreasing support for biased evaluation of political facts; and
- Decreased cold feelings towards out-partisans – people from other political parties.
The full study is available on the Strengthening Democracy Challenge website.
“The results of this study show that small, wise interventions can make a big difference,” said Civity co-founder Palma Strand, “and that social trust is the foundation for reaching across any social divide to reduce disconnection and division. Before this study, researchers had not yet fully connected the story of people feeling disconnected to the partisan divide.” Strand added, “Feeling connected to people who are different makes it possible for us to have the conversations we need about the tough issues we face.”
Civity Storytelling invites participants to watch a short animated video to learn about civity: a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with people who are different from them. Participants then watch five brief videos of people sharing what others may miss about them and what community means to them. Finally, participants reflect on the intervention and share something people may miss about them.
Civity’s intervention doesn’t mention partisan identity or difference. Instead, it highlights how all people are complex, and in fact always more than one label. People are complex!
The Civity Storytelling intervention was one of 25 chosen from a pool of 252 submissions by researchers from Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. The 25 were then tested in a large-scale intervention involving more than 32,000 people across the U.S. from various points on the political spectrum.
“Ours was one of the only interventions focused on differences generally, rather than specifically on partisan attitudes,” said Civity co-founder Malka Kopell. “It worked because democracy is about seeing people of all differences as being part of the community. This is what democracy is about – we are all part of a community that matters.”
Civity generally puts people into one-on-one conversations with an other with the goal of sharing and hearing each other’s stories – a process that helps people see each other’s humanity and build trust.
While this intervention did not allow for the two-way conversations that generally define Civity’s approach, Civity’s intervention was able to give study participants the experience of hearing from people across differences and then contemplating the experience of hearing and sharing stories. “We wanted people watching to see someone they initially considered different from them, but then come to know them a little better as they heard their story,” said Kopell.
Civity Storytelling is also one of the few submissions based in research and practice. “Our focus is working on the ground with people in communities,” said Strand. “At the same time, the practices we invite people to use in their everyday lives are grounded in a depth of research across academic disciplines.”
Kopell and Strand stress that civity is something we ALL can weave into our everyday lives.
“We often see that people are already practicing some form of civity, but don’t have the intentionality,” Kopell said. “Civity Storytelling helps us be intentional about building relational infrastructure and contributing to strengthening our communities and cultivating the foundation for democracy.”
Strand spoke about Civity’s intervention at the SDC conference – Bridging Divides & Strengthening Democracy: From Science to Practice – on September 29th. You can watch a recording of Palma’s presentation on the SDC conference page.
Robb Willer, the primary organizer of the study and Director of Stanford’s Polarization and Social Change Lab, talked about the Challenge on the This Is Civity! Podcast with Civity’s Communications Director Gina Baleria in February 2023. You can listen to that conversation via the Civity website.
“This study shows that people are more open to other people than we might think, especially if they are put into relationship,” said Strand. “If this can happen in eight minutes online, imagine what can happen when we face each other in real time!”