IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0267493.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bridging the (Brexit) divide: Effects of a brief befriending meditation on affective polarization

Author

Listed:
  • Otto Simonsson
  • Simon B Goldberg
  • Joseph Marks
  • Liuxin Yan
  • Jayanth Narayanan

Abstract

The European Union Brexit referendum has divided the British electorate, with high levels of animosity between those who affiliate with the Remain side (Remainers) and the Leave side (Leavers) of the debate. Previous research has shown that a brief befriending meditation reduces affective polarization among Democrats and Republicans in the United States, but the results have not been replicated in a non-US sample and the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects have yet to be examined. The present study therefore used a post-test only randomized controlled design to investigate the effects of a brief befriending meditation on affective polarization among Remainers and Leavers (n = 922). Results showed that participants in the befriending condition scored modestly lower on affective polarization than participants in the attentional control condition (t(921) = 2.17, p = .030, d = 0.14) and that perceived commonality with the political outgroup mediated the effects. In sum, audio-guided befriending practices may be a highly scalable means to reduce high levels of affective polarization through increasing perceived commonality.

Suggested Citation

  • Otto Simonsson & Simon B Goldberg & Joseph Marks & Liuxin Yan & Jayanth Narayanan, 2022. "Bridging the (Brexit) divide: Effects of a brief befriending meditation on affective polarization," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(5), pages 1-9, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0267493
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267493
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267493
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267493&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0267493?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher McConnell & Yotam Margalit & Neil Malhotra & Matthew Levendusky, 2018. "The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 5-18, January.
    2. Hobolt, Sara B. & Leeper, Thomas J. & Tilley, James, 2021. "Divided by the Vote: Affective Polarization in the Wake of the Brexit Referendum," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 1476-1493, October.
    3. James N. Druckman & Samara Klar & Yanna Krupnikov & Matthew Levendusky & John Barry Ryan, 2021. "Affective polarization, local contexts and public opinion in America," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 28-38, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:osf:osfxxx:y79u5_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Pomerance, Justin & Van Boven, Leaf, 2025. "Party over product: People exaggerate the influence of political cues on others’ consumption preferences," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 153-170.
    3. Cornago Bonal, Luis & Raffaelli, Francesco, 2024. "Political Identities and the Politics of Workplace Cooperation," OSF Preprints j43tn, Center for Open Science.
    4. Beloborodova, Anna, 2023. "Political views regarding the war in Ukraine in an online dating experiment," MPRA Paper 120739, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Beloborodova, Anna, 2023. "Love or politics? Political views regarding the war in Ukraine in an online dating experiment," MPRA Paper 118862, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. repec:osf:osfxxx:j43tn_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Facciani, Matthew & Lazić, Aleksandra & Viggiano, Gracemarie & McKay, Tara, 2023. "Political network composition predicts vaccination attitudes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    8. Kuang, Pei & Luca, Davide & Wei, Zhiwu & Yao, Yao, 2023. "Great or grim? Disagreement about Brexit, economic expectations and household spending," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119200, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Mario Lackner & Uwe Sunde & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2025. "The forces behind social unrest: Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    10. Ellger, Fabio & Hilbig, Hanno & Riaz, Sascha & Tillmann, Philipp, 2024. "Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization – Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 1256-1275.
    11. Borbáth, Endre & Hutter, Swen & Leininger, Arndt, 2023. "Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 631-651.
    12. repec:osf:osfxxx:j43tn_v2 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Sönke Ehret & Sara M. Constantino & Elke U. Weber & Charles Efferson & Sonja Vogt, 2022. "Group identities can undermine social tipping after intervention," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1669-1679, December.
    14. Lucia Freira & Marco Sartorio & Cynthia Boruchowicz & Florencia Lopez Boo & Joaquin Navajas, 2021. "The interplay between partisanship, forecasted COVID-19 deaths, and support for preventive policies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    15. Ronja Sczepanski, 2023. "European by action: How voting reshapes nested identities," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 751-770, December.
    16. Mark W Susmann & Graham N Dixon & Brad J Bushman & R Kelly Garrett, 2022. "Correcting misperceptions of gun policy support can foster intergroup cooperation between gun owners and non-gun owners," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(6), pages 1-13, June.
    17. James N. Druckman, 2022. "Threats to Science: Politicization, Misinformation, and Inequalities," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 700(1), pages 8-24, March.
    18. Hsuan-Wei Lee & Yen-Ping Chang & Yen-Sheng Chiang, 2020. "Status hierarchy and group cooperation: A generalized model," Papers 2004.00944, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    19. James N. Druckman & Donald P. Green & Shanto Iyengar, 2023. "Does Affective Polarization Contribute to Democratic Backsliding in America?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 708(1), pages 137-163, July.
    20. Soojong Kim, 2019. "Directionality of information flow and echoes without chambers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-22, May.
    21. Umar, Muhammad & Su, Chi-Wei & Rizvi, Syed Kumail Abbas & Shao, Xue-Feng, 2021. "Bitcoin: A safe haven asset and a winner amid political and economic uncertainties in the US?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    22. Piotr Cichocki & Piotr Jabkowski, 2023. "Response scale overstretch: linear stretching of response scales does not ensure cross-project equivalence in harmonised data," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3729-3745, August.
    23. Christopher McConnell & Yotam Margalit & Neil Malhotra & Matthew Levendusky, 2020. "Erratum: “The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era”," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 1047-1049, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0267493. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.