A new solution to political divisiveness: Priming a sense of common humanity through Facebook meme-like posts

Abstract

This two-study package examines sense of common humanity—a subcomponent of the psychological construct of self-compassion—in relation to political divisiveness. Study 1 ( n = 1010) employs a survey with a probability sample representative of the US population to show that sense of common humanity—recognizing that feeling bad about oneself is a common human experience—is associated with feeling competent to form relationships with those one disagrees with politically. This finding paved the way for Study 2, an experiment ( n = 955) that showed sense of common humanity can be primed using meme-like posts on Facebook, and, as a result, lead people to have more positive attitudes toward their political outgroup. From a theoretical perspective, this study demonstrates the relevance of using self-compassion as a framework for addressing political divisiveness, and that a sense of common humanity can be primed in the computer-mediated space of Facebook.