How College Students Can Depolarize: Evidence for Political Moderation Within Homogeneous Groups

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that, after deliberation, college students showed immense moderation potential and affective depolarization, especially even given their homogeneity as a bloc within American politics and within the overwhelmingly liberal sample for this paper. These findings offer optimism for future research in homogeneous groups through understanding that group polarization, while a very worrisome phenomenon, can be avoided with the right precautionary measures. It is clear that college students are capable of engaging constructively across differences and that deliberation, through Deliberative Polling in particular, can serve to build the capacity to do so.