Countering Political Polarization Through Conscious and Unconscious Integrative Complexity

Abstract

Political polarization has been growing in many countries, including the United States, within recent years. Scholars note how, if not addressed, growing trends can compromise fundamental pillars of a functioning democratic society. While efforts have grown in researching how integrative complexity can successfully mitigate polarizing tensions in political divides, there is a lack of scholarly attention on how conscious and unconscious dimensions of integrative complexity affect such processes. This article proposes a framework to ground future research in this direction as well as inform depolarizing interventions on this topic.