Sarah Mughal is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers–New Brunswick. Her research interests include how social perceptions exacerbate political polarization, how digital environments affect real social and democratic norms, and how biases in large language models might exacerbate societal inequities and discrimination. In her spare time, she enjoys watching improv comedy and playing video games with her friends.

Political Stereotypes and Cross-Party Dialogue: What Keeps Us From Talking To Each Other

Political polarization in the United States is on the rise, threatening our democracy. Part of the reason for this increasing polarization is because people with opposing views don’t want to talk to one another, and have stereotypes of the opposing party that are not true. Past research suggests that stereotypes might be more uniformly negative in countries with more conflict; however, specific relationships between political stereotyping, political discourse, and political polarization have yet to be explored. This project will examine these relationships and connect them to citizens’ willingness to engage in cross-partisan dialogue.