Why having friends with different beliefs is the key to fix America's political divide

Over recent years, there have been articles, polls, and data discussing and showcasing the deepening political divide in the United States. The polarization between liberals and conservatives appears higher than it has ever been in the country’s history. However, a series of published studies show that there is a social factor that can make right wingers and left wingers flap together: having a diverse group of friends.

Studies from City University of New York shed light on what can cause dedicated Republicans and staunch Democrats to reach across the aisle towards one another and even become friends themselves. The authors of the published study, Kyle Anderson, Grace Flores-Robles, and Daryl Wout, were inspired by previous research that found that people expected to be treated more fairly and with less bias when the person they were interacting with had a racially diverse set of friends. They wondered if there would be similar patterns observed when two politically opposed persons interacted. In short, they wanted to see if people would feel less anxiety and less judged about their political affiliation talking to a person who had different political beliefs but still had a politically diverse friend group compared to a person who was “true blue” or “bled red.”

The researchers held three separate online studies consisting of 696 participants. The first two studies were focused on white liberals and white conservatives being asked questions and shown profiles of people from the opposition party, choosing who they would mostly like to speak with based on the friends they had. The third study shifted to include people of multiple ethnicities, and primarily focused on diverse versus homogenous relationships. While the third study was primarily focused on ethnicity, it included hypothetical conversation scenarios over hot button political topics such as gun control and abortion in which participants had to gauge how comfortable they’d be discussing them and how they’d imagine the chat would go.

In all three studies, the majority of participants preferred to speak with politically opposing people who had a diverse set of friends.

“Political diversity in people’s friendship networks (having both liberal and conservative friends), as compared to only having friends from their political group, helps make people with different identities across the political divide feel more psychologically safe, and eases relations between liberals and conservatives in the United States,” said Anderson to PsyPost.

This seems like a no-brainer conclusion but now there is scientific evidence to back it up: if a person has a friend like you then they might like you. It’s like in school when two people can come from different religions, racial backgrounds, and even values yet still befriend one another over Pokémon cards. While politics can be much more divisive compared to a trading card hobby, seeing a person that has at least a few people who aren’t like them in their friend group sets off a signal that they can at least hear out and be civil with a person they disagree with.

So… how do I attract different people into my friend circle?

If you want to befriend different people within your friend group, it’s going to have to be proactive. Fortunately, there are several ways to do so but it’s not as different as making friends with folks who are like you: explore your interests. Take a cooking class in a different part of town. Go to a different bar and ask to join in a game of pool. Attend concerts, sporting events, and other places in which you can first talk about the common activity and expand further. Yes, you can even make new adult friends at Pokémon card conventions, too.

Getting to know folks and making friends with people who differ from you can help you either gain new perspectives or further cement your beliefs with better understanding. Only this time, if the conversation goes south, you can easily pivot to a different topic.