Collaborative Research on Political Discussion in the Workplace: Causes and Consequences of Cross-Cutting Political Dialogue

工作场所政治讨论的合作研究：跨领域政治对话的原因和后果

• 批准号: 9818216
• 负责人: Diana Mutz
• 金额: $ 15.23万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-03-15 至 2001-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9818216&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Political; Discussion; Workplace

Political dialogue with non-like-minded others is an essential component of a health, functioning public pshere. Unfortunately, research suggests that people in the United States may be segregated increasingly from those with views which differ from their own, and thus political communication across lines of difference is more and more unlikely in people's day-to-day lives. Residential patterns have moved toward spatially segregated living. In addition to structural trends, exposure to dissimilar views is inhibited by the well-known tendency for people to select politically like-minded discussion partners. Strong ties and frequent interpersonal contact tend to occur within the context of homogeneous interactions, thus limiting the extent to which these contacts bring new views to people's attention. Based on evidence from secondary analyses of four independent surveys, we demonstrate that the workplace is a key context in which political dialogue regularly crosses lines of difference, and thus it constitutes a venue with tremendous potential to influence political attitudes. In order to understand better the current and potential future contributions of the workplace, our project is designed explicitly to study workplace networks of informal political communication. The project promises both theoretically interesting insights on contemporary concerns surrounding the prospects for a public sphere, and practical insights into how the workplace might be utilized better as a context for promoting the goals of both broader and deper public discourse. Our research questions are organized around three broad concerns: (1) What individual and environmental factors facilitate explosure to cross-cutting political views? (2) What are the consequences of cross-cutting political discussion? We examine a variety of specific outcomes that have been posited to result from exposure to diverse views. They include persuasion from one political viewpoint to another; greater awareness of rationales for opposing viewpoints on various issues, and the political tolerance that may flow from such awareness; a deeper understanding of the rationale for one's own political views; alterations in levels of political engagement; and the degree of social trust. (3) What role does the workplace play as a mediating structure in the political life of ordinary Americans? Our study makes uses of three different approaches to examine the contributions of the workplace toward cross-cutting political dialogue. First, we use several existing data sets that tap general networks of political communication in order to examine the ways in which discussants encountered through the workplace differ from those encountered in other venues. Second, since these previous network studies have been designed explicity to study residential social contexts, we plan to conduct a national survey of working Americans that focuses specifically on workplace networks of political discussion. Finally, we plan to conduct more intensive interviews with respondents in each of four different workplaces and five different work units within each of these workplaces for a total of 20 work units. In addition to studying a small number of workplaces in greater depth, the major advantage of this design component is that aggregate measures can be used as independent variables to explain variance in the nature of individual dyads. Beyond this, the contextual data and the dyad-level data can be used as independent variables to explain individual-level attitudes and behaviors. In other words, analyses can be performed across levels and units to draw stronger conclusions about who influences whom.

与非敏感他人的政治对话是健康的重要组成部分。 不幸的是，研究表明，美国的人们可能越来越多地隔离与自己的观点不同的观点，因此，跨不同差异的政治交流在人们的日常生活中越来越不可能。 住宅模式已转向空间隔离的生活。除了结构性趋势外，人们倾向于选择具有政治志趣相投的讨论伙伴的知名趋势。 牢固的联系和频繁的人际交往往往发生在同质互动的背景下，从而限制了这些接触引起人们注意的新观点的程度。根据对四项独立调查的二次分析的证据，我们证明了工作场所是一个关键背景，政治对话定期跨越差异，因此它构成了一个具有巨大潜力来影响政治态度的场所。 为了更好地理解工作场所的当前和潜在未来贡献，我们的项目旨在研究非正式政治沟通的工作场所网络。 该项目承诺对围绕公共领域前景的当代关注的理论上有趣的见解，以及对如何更好地利用工作场所的实际见解，以促进更广泛的公共讨论的目标。我们的研究问题是围绕三个广泛问题组织的：（1）哪些个人和环境因素有助于解释交叉的政治观点？ （2）跨裁判政治讨论的后果是什么？ 我们研究了各种特定结果，这些结果是由于暴露于各种观点而导致的。 其中包括从一个政治观点到另一种政治观点的说服力；对理由的意识提高了对各种问题的反对观点，以及可能从这种意识中流动的政治宽容；对自己的政治观点的理由有更深入的理解；政治参与程度的改变；以及社会信任的程度。 （3）工作场所在普通美国人的政治生活中扮演着什么角色？我们的研究利用了三种不同的方法来研究工作场所对交叉进行政治对话的贡献。 首先，我们使用几个现有的数据集，这些数据集利用了一般的政治沟通网络，以检查工作场所遇到的讨论者与其他场所遇到的方式不同。 其次，由于这些先前的网络研究被设计为研究住宅社会环境的明确性，因此我们计划对美国人的全国性调查，专门针对政治讨论的工作场所网络。 最后，我们计划在每个工作场所中的四个不同工作场所和五个不同的工作单元中对受访者进行更深入的访谈，共有20个工作单位。 除了研究少数工作场所的深度外，该设计组成部分的主要优点是，可以将骨料度量用作自变量，以解释单个二元组本质的差异。 除此之外，上下文数据和二元级数据可以用作自变量，以解释个人级别的态度和行为。 换句话说，可以跨级别和单位进行分析，以得出关于谁影响谁的更强有力的结论。