Summary: A new study challenges the belief that exposure to facts only deepens political divisions. Researchers found that when Americans were presented with balanced, credible information about gun control, and incentivized to engage with it, they retained the facts and even revised their views.
Instead of becoming more polarized, participants shifted toward moderation without becoming more hostile toward those with opposing opinions. These findings suggest that factual knowledge, when delivered effectively, can reduce polarization and foster healthier democratic dialogue.
Key Facts:
- Sustained Impact: Participants retained balanced information and showed less polarized views even a month after the study.
- Reduced Polarization: Exposure to counter-attitudinal facts led to moderation, not extremism or increased hostility.
- Actionable Insight: The study supports using high-quality, balanced information as a tool to reduce political divisions.
Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
A new study co-led by Dr. Eran Amsalem from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Michael Nicholas Stagnaro of MIT challenges long-held beliefs about the role of information in political discourse: factual knowledge, rather than deepening political divides, can actually help bridge them.
Published in Nature Communications, the study tested a widely accepted theory in political science—namely, that exposure to information leads individuals to become more entrenched in their views due to politically motivated reasoning.
According to this theory, people tend to reject facts that contradict their beliefs while embracing those that support them, leading to greater polarization. However, the findings from this new research tell a different story.
A representative sample of more than 1,000 Americans participated in a randomized experiment focused on the contentious topic of gun control.
Participants were presented with a large volume of credible facts—some that supported their existing opinions and others that challenged them—and received modest incentives to engage with the material.
Remarkably, participants did not shy away from counter-attitudinal information; they read it, learned it, and retained it. Even one month later, their knowledge persisted—and so did the shift in their attitudes.
Rather than becoming more extreme, individuals moved toward more moderate views. Importantly, this depolarization occurred without a corresponding increase in emotional hostility toward those with opposing opinions, indicating that knowledge affected policy attitudes without fueling interpersonal animosity.
“Our study shows that people are more open-minded than we often assume,” said Dr. Amsalem, a senior lecturer at the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University.
“When individuals are given high-quality, balanced facts and a reason to learn them, they don’t simply cling to their old beliefs—they revise them.
“This offers a hopeful message: factual knowledge, when properly delivered, can be a powerful antidote to polarization across a range of contentious issues.”
Why This Matters Now
This study arrives at a crucial time. As political polarization intensifies in democracies worldwide, understanding how to foster meaningful dialogue is more important than ever.
Misinformation, emotionally charged rhetoric, and media echo chambers often dominate the public sphere, leaving little room for nuance or learning.
Against this backdrop, the idea that people can change their minds when presented with balanced, accurate information is both surprising and deeply encouraging.
The research challenges the growing cynicism about people’s capacity to engage constructively across ideological divides. It offers evidence that depolarization is not just a theoretical ideal but an achievable outcome—if the right informational tools are used.
In an age when extremism and animosity spread easily and trust in institutions is fragile, the findings highlight a path forward: by making trustworthy, balanced information accessible and incentivizing engagement with it, societies may yet reclaim the middle ground.
Implications for Policy and Public Discourse
By highlighting that accurate, balanced information can lead to genuine changes in belief, the study offers a compelling counterpoint to the growing frustration with polarized discourse.
It suggests that civic education, public policy, and media practices should prioritize not only the accuracy of information, but also its presentation and accessibility.
Ultimately, this research could inform new approaches to journalism, educational curricula, and even social media platform design—fostering healthier, more productive conversations in democratic societies.
About this political psychology research news
Author: Yarden Mills
Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Contact: Yarden Mills – Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Factual knowledge can reduce attitude polarization” by Eran Amsalem et al. Nature Communications
Abstract
Factual knowledge can reduce attitude polarization
It is commonly argued that factual knowledge about a political issue increases attitude polarization due to politically motivated reasoning.
By this account, individuals ignore counter-attitudinal facts and direct their attention to pro-attitudinal facts; reject counter-attitudinal facts when directly confronted with them; and use pro-attitudinal facts to counterargue, all making them more polarized.
The observation that more knowledgeable partisans are often more polarized is widely taken as support for this account. Yet these data are only correlational.
Here, we directly test the causal effect of increasing issue-relevant knowledge on attitude polarization.
Specifically, we randomize whether N = 1,011 participants receive a large, credible set of both pro- and counter-attitudinal facts on a contentious political issue – gun control – and provide a modest incentive for them to learn this information.
We find evidence that people are willing to engage with and learn policy-relevant facts both for and against their initial attitudes; and that this increased factual knowledge shifts individuals towards more moderate policy attitudes, a durable effect that is still visible after one month.
Our results suggest that the impact of directionally motivated reasoning on the processing of political information might be more limited than previously thought.
