Ebook What Goes Without Saying Navigating Political Discussion in America Taylor N Carlson Settle Jaime E Online PDF All Chapter

What Goes Without Saying Navigating
Political Discussion in America Taylor

N Carlson Settle Jaime E
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/what-goes-without-saying-navigating-political-discussi
on-in-america-taylor-n-carlson-settle-jaime-e/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Frenemies How Social Media Polarizes America Jaime E.

Settle
https://ebookmeta.com/product/frenemies-how-social-media-
polarizes-america-jaime-e-settle/
Democracy on the Edge A Discussion of Political Issues

in America Second Edition Terry Amrhein
https://ebookmeta.com/product/democracy-on-the-edge-a-discussion-
of-political-issues-in-america-second-edition-terry-amrhein/
Misinformation Nation Foreign News and the Politics of

Truth in Revolutionary America Jordan E. Taylor
https://ebookmeta.com/product/misinformation-nation-foreign-news-
and-the-politics-of-truth-in-revolutionary-america-jordan-e-
taylor/
A Century of Wealth in America Wolff Edward N
https://ebookmeta.com/product/a-century-of-wealth-in-america-
wolff-edward-n/
Religion and Political Culture in Kano John N. Paden
https://ebookmeta.com/product/religion-and-political-culture-in-
kano-john-n-paden/
Cultural Management and Policy in Latin America 1st

Edition Taylor & Francis Group
https://ebookmeta.com/product/cultural-management-and-policy-in-
latin-america-1st-edition-taylor-francis-group/
Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in

Latin America Barry Ames
https://ebookmeta.com/product/political-survival-politicians-and-
public-policy-in-latin-america-barry-ames/
Retaking America Crushing Political Correctness Nick

Adams
https://ebookmeta.com/product/retaking-america-crushing-
political-correctness-nick-adams/
Health Psychology 11th Edition Shelley E. Taylor
https://ebookmeta.com/product/health-psychology-11th-edition-
shelley-e-taylor/
What Goes Without Saying
Why are political conversations uncomfortable for so many people?

Current literature focuses on the structure of discussion networks,
and the frequency with which people talk about politics, but not the
dynamics of conversations themselves. In What Goes Without Saying,
Taylor N. Carlson and Jaime E. Settle investigate how Americans
navigate these discussions in their daily lives, with particular attention
to the decision–making process around when and how to broach polit-
ics. The authors use a multi–methods approach to unpack what they
call the 4D Framework of political conversation: identifying the ways
that people detect others’ views, decide whether to talk, discuss their
opinions honestly – or not, and determine whether they will repeat the
experience in the future. In developing a framework for studying and
explaining political discussion as a social process, What Goes Without
Saying will set the agenda for research in political science, psychology,
communication, and sociology for decades to come.
 .  is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at

Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Talking
Politics: Political Discussion Networks and the New American
Electorate (2020). She has received numerous awards for her research.
 .  is an Associate Professor of Government at the
College of William & Mary. Her first book, Frenemies: How Social
Media Polarizes America (Cambridge University Press 2018), won the
Best Book Award from the Experimental Politics section of APSA.
Published online by Cambridge University Press

Navigating Political Discussion in America
TAYLOR N. CARLSON
Washington University in St. Louis
JAIME E. SETTLE
William & Mary

University Printing House, Cambridge  , United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York,  10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,

New Delhi – 110025, India
103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108831864
: 10.1017/9781108912495
© Taylor N. Carlson and Jaime E. Settle 2022
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2022
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

: Carlson, Taylor N., author. | Settle, Jaime E., 1985- author.
: What goes without saying / Taylor N. Carlson, Washington University in St. Louis, Jaime E. Settle,
College of William & Mary, Virginia.
: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
:  2022001129 (print) |  2022001130 (ebook) |  9781108831864 (Hardback) | 
9781108927444 (Paperback) |  9781108912495 (ePub)
: : Communication in politics. | Group identity. | Discussion. | Political sociology. | :
POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / General
:  85 .384497 2022 (print) |  85 (ebook) |  320.01/4–dc23/eng/20220304
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022001129
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022001130
 978-1-108-83186-4 Hardback

 978-1-108-92744-4 Paperback
Additional resources for this publication at www.cambridge.org/9781108831864
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.




TAYLOR N. CARLSON
JAIME E. SETTLE
William & Mary



www.cambridge.org
: 10.1017/9781108912495


9781108927444 (Paperback) |  9781108912495 (ePub)
 978-1-108-83186-4 Hardback

 978-1-108-92744-4 Paperback





TAYLOR N. CARLSON
JAIME E. SETTLE
William & Mary



www.cambridge.org
: 10.1017/9781108912495


9781108927444 (Paperback) |  9781108912495 (ePub)
 978-1-108-83186-4 Hardback

 978-1-108-92744-4 Paperback


Contents
List of Figures page vii

List of Tables ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Opening the Black Box of Political Discussion 1

2 The 4D Framework of Political Discussion 20
3 Data Collection 44
4 Detection: Mapping the Political Landscape (Stage 1) 77
5 Decision: To Talk or Not to Talk? (Stage 2) 109
6 Discussion: The Psychophysiological Experience of Political
Discussion (Stage 3) 130
7 [further] Discussion: Expression in Political Discussions
(Stage 3) 154
8 Determination: When Discussion Divides Us (Stage 4) 180
9 Individual Dispositions and the 4D Framework 202
10 The Costs of Conversation 234
Notes 259
Works Cited 277
Index 293

Figures
4.1 Proportion of respondents agreeing with stereotype

statements page 104
6.1 Average change in psychophysiological response to video
and discussion stimuli 134
6.2 Average change in psychophysiological response to
discussion stimuli 136
6.3 Psychophysiological response throughout Psychophysiological
Experience Study 140
6.4 Psychophysiological response to discussion prompts by
partisan identity concordance 145
6.5 Psychophysiological response to discussion prompts
by issue disagreement 146
6.6 Psychophysiological response to discussion prompts, by
perceived disagreement 150
7.1 Most important concerns and opportunities, by AAA
Typology 158
7.2 Most important concerns and opportunities, by
treatment group 161
7.3 Considerations by expression response 167
7.4 Qualification in partisan identity expression,
by partisan clash condition 175
8.1 Types and frequency of political and social distancing 187
8.2 Main effects of partisan composition on avoiding
future political discussions with this group 191
8.3 Main effects of partisan composition on avoiding future
social interactions with this group 195
vii

viii List of Figures
8.4 Predicted likelihood of polarization, by strength of

partisanship and network composition 198
9.1 Predicted probability of guessing views, by political
dispositions 217
9.2 Predicted probability of expression responses, by political
dispositions 219
9.3 Predicted probability of expression response, by
psychological dispositions 224
9.4 Predicted probability of relying on cues, by psychological
dispositions 227
9.5 Predicted probability of distancing, by psychological
dispositions 229

Tables
3.1 Correlations between individual dispositions page 48

3.2 Conceptualization and measurement of disagreement 50
3.3 Conceptualization and operationalization of
knowledge asymmetries 52
3.4 Considerations coded into AAA Typology 55
3.5 Measurement of 4D Framework outcomes 57
3.6 Survey data collection 62
3.7 Psychophysiological lab studies 70
3.8 Vignette experiments overview 74
4.1 Detection categories based on free response data 83
4.2 Socioeconomic and non-visible demographic traits and
inferred partisanship 92
4.3 Actual and perceived political leanings of phonetically
ideological names 99
4.4 Frequency of guessing views and confidence in guesses 106
5.1 Agreement in discussions that were avoided and engaged in 116
5.2 Motivation for engagement or avoidance, coded free
response answers 117
5.3 Summary of results about Stage 2 (Decision) 127
6.1 Mean emotional response, treatment main effects 137
6.2 Hypotheses in Psychophysiological Experience Study 142
6.3 Recall and accuracy in discussion partner’s opinion 148
7.1 Vignette experiment hypotheses 157
7.2 Percentage of respondents selecting each consideration as
most important 159
ix

x List of Tables
7.3 Expression response from vignette experiment, by

treatment condition 163
7.4 Likelihood of expressing true opinion, by most
important consideration 166
7.5 Linguistic markers in Psychophysiological Experience Study 172
7.6 Explanatory variables for linguistic marker analysis 174
7.7 Pattern of findings for linguistic markers in issue discussion in
Psychophysiological Experience Study 178
8.1 Summary of Determination stage questions 185
9.1 Summary of key findings 205
9.2 Empirical approach for evaluating individual dispositions
and Stage 2 behavior 210
9.3 Empirical approach for evaluating individual dispositions and
Stage 3 behavior 212
9.4 Empirical approach for evaluating individual
dispositions and Stage 4 behavior 213
9.5 Empirical approach for evaluating individual dispositions
and Stage 1 behavior 216

Acknowledgements
This project is the result of shared intellectual curiosity nurtured by an

environment that incentivized and rewarded collaborative research
between faculty and students. We began working together as professor
and undergraduate research assistant in 2012, but we wrap up this project
as coequal collaborators and friends.
Jaime’s interest in contentious interactions and Taylor’s interest in
conformity blossomed into this book, a project nearly ten years in the
making that served as the organizing principle of our joint research
agenda during a critically important era, professionally, for each of us.
A project of this duration and magnitude would not have been possible
without the support of many people and organizations.
The methodological pluralism in this book necessitated a substantial
investment of resources. We thank the National Science Foundation
(NSF) for its financial support (SES 1423788: Understanding the
Mechanisms for Disengagement from Contentious Political Interaction)
and for its engagement when our research was politicized as part of a
battle in Congress over funding for the social sciences. The NSF grant
funded the lab equipment for the psychophysiological studies, the nation-
ally representative surveys, countless additional experiments with con-
venience samples, an army of undergraduate research assistants, training
and workshop travel for a dozen students, and conference travel allowing
us to share our work and receive important feedback.
We are also grateful for the support provided by the universities with
which we’ve been affiliated during our time working on this book.
William & Mary (W&M) generously supported the Social Science
Research Methods Center and the Omnibus Project, which were essential
xi

xii Acknowledgements
for the execution of the lab experiments. The Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute (formerly the Christopher Wren Association), in particular
Judith Bowers, partnered with us to help disseminate our findings.
W&M also funded several opportunities for Taylor through an Honors
Fellowship, which ultimately supported an experiment described in
Chapter 7, conference travel to the Midwest Political Science
Association (MPSA), and training at the Summer Institute for Political
Psychology at Stanford in 2013. The University of California, San Diego’s
Center for American Politics provided space on a CCES module that
provided data for analyses that appear in Chapter 8. Washington
University in St. Louis provided Taylor with the time needed to dedicate
to this project and resources to hire graduate research assistants, such as
Erin Rossiter and Benjamin Noble, without whom this project would
have been seriously delayed.
Taylor was one of the core founding members of the Social Networks
and Political Psychology (SNaPP) Lab, which Jaime established in 2013.
The impact of the lab on this project cannot be overstated. Multiple
cohorts of W&M students were directly and indirectly involved in the
projects presented in this book. We are especially grateful to the
members of the Lab Experiments Team over the years. Drew
Engelhardt was the first to tackle the setup of the BioPac equipment
and AcqKnowledge software, followed by Karina Charipova. John
Stuart, Edward Hernandez, Zarine Kharazian, Dan Brown, and
Michelle Hermes collected, cleaned, and preprocessed most of the data
for the psychophysiologically informative studies in Chapters 6 and 7.
Laurel Detert, Emily Saylor, Alex Bulova, Nick Oviedo-Torres, Emma
DiLauro, and Nora Donnelly were involved in analyzing some of this
data as well as in thinking about how the study protocols could be
extended in the future.
Countless other SNaPP Lab alums were involved in the production of
the data. We thank Meg Schwenzfeier for her work in coding the social
network analysis data from the first psychophysiological study. We thank
Michael Payne for the inspiration for what we report as the Names as
Cues study but internally called the “Ezekiel Studies” because of a
humorous conversation with him. Another set of students – Ally Brown,
Vera Choo, Leslie Davis, Aidan Fielding, Jacob Nelson, Alexis Payne,
Anne Pietrow, Kathleen Quigley, and Olivia Yang – were involved in
coding free response data. The “COVID Cohort” – Julia Campbell,
Claudia Chen, Leslie Davis, Andrew Luchs, Kaylie Martinez-Ochoa,
and Frank Tao – contributed at the final stages of writing the manuscript,

Acknowledgements xiii
including to help polish the opening vignettes in the chapters. Dozens of

other W&M students served as proctors or subjects in our studies.
Jaime thanks John Hibbing and Kevin Smith for hosting her for a visit
in 2012 that was the crash course in how to set up a psychophysiology
lab, as well as for their support and encouragement throughout this
project. During that trip, the opportunity to learn from Carly Jacobs,
Mike Gruszczynski, Amanda Friesen, Jayme Renfro, Kristen Anderson,
Karl Giuseffi, Frank Gonzalez, and Scott Bokemper was invaluable. With
funding from the NSF grant, Jaime and Taylor sponsored a workshop in
2015 for graduate and undergraduate research assistants to “open the
black box” on using psychophysiological measures; in 2016 a second
workshop was held in conjunction with a conference hosted by Matt
Hibbing and supported by UC Merced. Those workshops were crucial
to ensure that we were using best practices in our collection and analysis
of physiological data, and we are grateful to the participants and support-
ers of that effort: Nicolas Anspach, Vin Arceneaux, Chelsea Coe, John
Peterson, and several research assistants from the SNaPP Lab named
previously.
Over the years, we’ve been exceptionally fortunate to have the oppor-
tunity to present this work in front of a number of audiences. We thank
our fellow panelists, discussants, and audience members from panels at
the American Political Science Association (APSA) (2014, 2015, and
2016), MPSA (2014 and 2015), International Society of Political
Psychology (ISPP) (2014, 2015, and 2017), World Association for
Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) 2015, and Political Networks
Conference (PolNet) 2016. We’ve also had the chance to give talks about
the project at Northwestern University’s American Politics Workshop, the
University of Virginia’s American Politics Speaker Series, CEVIPOF’s
Political Economy of Accountability Workshop, as well as the New
Methods and Perspectives in Political Psychology Symposium at the
2021 SPSP Political Psychology Preconference. We are both members of
the Omni Methods Group (formerly known as the Human Nature
Group) and we are grateful for the invaluable feedback we’ve received
on so many facets of the project, from its earliest incarnations to brain-
storming book titles. Many of Jaime’s favorite professional memories are
from retreats and conferences with this crew, where she has learned that
constructive, but supportive, criticism is ideally given and received in a
beautiful locale with a beer in hand.
There are a number of individuals whom we also want to thank for
their feedback. Brad LeVeck was extremely helpful in thinking through

xiv Acknowledgements
the Names as Cues studies. Stuart Soroka provided excellent conceptual

feedback at a critical juncture in the book’s development. Chris
Karpowitz made a comment at ISPP 2015 that inspired the True
Counterfactual Experiment design. Lisa Argyle provided incredibly
thoughtful comments on the earliest drafts of the first few chapters of this
manuscript. We thank her for encouraging us to think about what the
socially desirable behaviors truly are in political discussions and for years
of insightful conversations about conversations. We thank Jeremy Levy
for helpful discussions and feedback on the manuscript that pushed us to
improve its clarity and scope. Jamie Druckman’s enthusiasm and encour-
agement for this project bolstered our resolve to finish it. We thank the
anonymous reviewers for their feedback on the manuscript. This book
benefited from our conversations with Tali Mendelberg and Bridget
Flannery-McCoy, who pushed us to balance situating our argument
within scholarly debates and striking a tone that could have a broader
impact. We’re so grateful for the opportunity to work with Sara Doskow
at Cambridge University Press. Sara’s initial enthusiasm about the project
gave us the energy to see it through. She was incredibly supportive
throughout the process, especially given the tumultuous year we all had,
completing the manuscript during the Covid-19 pandemic. Joshua
Penney, Rachel Blaifeder, and Jadyn Fauconier-Herry enthusiastically
took the reins on this project to see it through to the finish line. We are
grateful for their attention to detail and suggestions for increasing the
reach of the book. Ashley and Tanner Schreiber-May of Hyphen did
phenomenal work on the cover art, capturing the essence of the book in
a visually compelling way.
Jaime would like to thank Michael Draeger for all the ways that he
keeps her grounded and reminds her that writing a book should be only
one piece of a rich and fulfilling life instead of an all-consuming endeavor.
Turns out we didn’t need a deus ex machina to keep the narrative of the
book moving, but she appreciates the suggestion and all the other ways he
has made her laugh. Jaime’s parents, Patty and Gene, have been as
supportive as ever and have stepped up in many ways, big and small, to
make life better. She wants to thank her extended family and the extended
Draeger clan for the chance to observe and participate in many interper-
sonal interactions about politics. Finally, Jaime thanks Taylor for inspir-
ing her at every step along the way. Taylor’s creativity, energy,
organization, perseverance, and humor are what kept this project moving
forward, despite slowdowns caused by Jaime’s other projects and post-
tenure malaise. She is so appreciative that Taylor’s drive and focus

Acknowledgements xv
rekindled her own, and she is a better scholar because of the opportunity
to work with Taylor.
Taylor would like to thank her family for providing years of examples
of different types of political discussions (both lived and observed), which
provided motivation to write this book. In addition to providing her with
a colorful variety of conversations that no doubt capture every single
behavior we describe empirically in this book, her family gave her unend-
ing support. She thanks her parents, Charlie and Skip, for giving her the
opportunity to attend the College of William & Mary and take full
advantage of opportunities along the way that helped pave the way for
this book. She thanks her grandparents, Bud and Sharon, for remaining
ever-curious about the research and what exactly it is that she does with
her time. Taylor also thanks her in-laws, Bob, Michelle, Alyssa (Hahn),
and Evan Carlson, for their support of and interest in her work. Taylor
owes the biggest gratitude to Eric and Daniel Carlson. Without Eric’s
support during the entirety of this project’s near-decade of work, Taylor
would not have had the motivation to finish. Eric gave her the space and
time to write, listened when she needed to vent or verbally process parts of
the project, and held down the fort when she traveled. Although Daniel’s
arrival into this world just before the Covid-19 pandemic delayed our
progress on this book by a few months, Taylor is most grateful of all to
her little Danny Bob. Daniel gave this book new meaning and purpose,
yet served as a constant reminder that life is more important than a book
(with apologies to readers!). Daniel “wrote” his first line of code for this
book and many paragraphs were written with Daniel asleep in
Taylor’s arms.
Taylor owes a huge thank-you to Jaime. Jaime has been an incredible
mentor and collaborator for nearly a decade. This book would not have
been possible without Jaime’s guidance, intuition, and patience while
Taylor learned the ropes of academia and struggled through challenges
that were just a distant memory for Jaime at the time, such as taking
comprehensive exams or finishing a dissertation. Jaime has been incred-
ibly supportive of work–life balance during this project, and Taylor is
indebted to Jaime for that above all else.

1
Opening the Black Box of Political Discussion
It’s December 4, nearly a month after a contentious election, and Joe is

just beginning a typical Thursday. Living in a big city means he can take
public transit to work, and that’s what he’s doing at 8:37 this morning.
Climbing into the bus, he quickly scans the open seats and chooses to sit
next to a woman holding a backpack on her lap that appears to be
blissfully free of political buttons and patches. As he settles in for the
twelve-minute ride, he pulls out his copy of the local newspaper, but
before he even cracks it open, his seatmate pipes up with a snarky
comment about the legitimacy of the election results. Joe feels trapped;
his heart is racing, and his palms feel sweaty. He instantly regrets his
decision to read the paper instead of listening to a podcast, where his
headphones could shield him from the unwanted political commentary
of others. He thinks it would be rude to get up and move away, but the
last thing he wants to do before his first cup of coffee is have a debate
about the election. He attempts a throwaway comment to derail the
conversation and buries his nose in the paper, hoping his seatmate will
take the hint.
The office, at long last. Joe peels off his winter layers and walks into the
office lounge where his colleagues are chatting. Joe knew as soon as he saw
them that he was going to be roped into a conversation. His apprehension
isn’t based on a lack of interest – one of the articles he read that morning
was on a related subject – and it’s not based on the absence of an opinion.
But he dreads the delicate dance of navigating these office talks. He knows
that his boss agrees with him, but the new program assistant probably
does not, based on the campaign buttons that adorn his cubicle. Joe is
acutely aware of how uncomfortable the new program assistant must be,
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108912495.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press

2 Opening the Black Box of Political Discussion
having been in his shoes before, and does his best to steer the conversation
toward safer waters. Football. Movies. The holidays. Their kids’ dance
recitals. Your grandmother’s bunion removal. Anything but politics.
Joe’s day continues. At lunch, he overhears people at the table next to
him talking about the latest economic news. It sounds like the most
talkative member of the group is sharing more opinion than fact, even
though he’s billing it as objective reality. Joe finishes his workday and
takes the bus home, remembering to use his headphones to avoid more
unwelcome political encounters. Thursday nights are dinners with his in-
laws; he gave up years ago trying to impress them, but he still makes an
effort not to antagonize them. While “not antagonizing them” used to be
simple enough, their constant political commentary has complicated
things. They always have something to say, typically motivated by the
cable news programs that monopolize their television. Joe never knows if
they want him to reply or not, but because they seem well-informed, he
never feels like he has much to contribute. He is always grateful when his
wife takes one for the team, and even though this conversation is the
longest one he’s had all day about politics, he does not actually say
anything.
As Joe falls asleep that night, he rehashes in his mind all the close calls
he had during the day, where he narrowly avoided getting drawn into an
unpleasant situation talking about politics. The evasion is exhausting, but
necessary. When he thinks back to the occasions where he has not steered
clear of contentious conversations – with strangers, with his coworkers,
and with his family – he cringes. Those negative memories are what
motivates him to work so hard to avoid offending others and minimize
his own discomfort.
       

   
Joe – a narrative composite built on the anecdotes shared with us by
hundreds of research subjects in open-ended questions – could be thought
of as the prototypical American when it comes to political discussion. In
what ways does Joe personify what is known about the discussion behav-
ior of the American public? And what is left unmeasured from Joe’s
experience using the standard techniques deployed in research on political
discussion?
We begin with the if and when of conversation: How do social scien-
tists measure whether Joe talked about politics? Imagine that Joe was

What We Do Not Know about Political Discussion 3
randomly selected to participate in the American National Election Study

(ANES). When asked if he has ever discussed politics with family and
friends, the answer is straightforward: yes. Joe, like the vast majority of
Americans, would probably report that he does talk about politics.
Perhaps to no surprise given the wording of the question, more than
70 percent of Americans from 1984 to 2016 report that they have
discussed politics at least once with their close social ties. While this
question is fairly direct, other questions about the frequency of political
discussion behavior might be harder to answer. Using the cumulative
ANES dataset, on average, Americans report that they discuss politics
about 2.4 days per week, although there is considerable variation over
time.1 When asked how many days in the past week Joe discussed politics,
how would he respond? He never initiated these interactions, but Joe
faced multiple opportunities to express his opinions if he desired. Does he
count the interaction on the bus or just the longer conversation with his
in-laws? Another question used to assess overall discussion behavior
assesses whether people try to avoid political discussions, enjoy them, or
fall somewhere in between. Joe is certain that he avoids them, but he
would have no way to tell the surveyor that he is not usually successful in
doing so.
Next, we consider the what of the conversation, or the substance and
experience of the political interactions Joe has. Most previous research
has not focused too intently on what Joe is likely to discuss. Scholars who
study deliberation would likely find Joe’s conversations lacking, as the
interactions he had fail to meet the criteria for deliberation, such as
participation from both people in the conversation (e.g. Thompson
2008).2 We know that the format of survey questions – asking about
discussing “important matters” versus “political matters” – tends to yield
similar distributions of discussant preferences (Klofstad, McClurg, and
Rolfe 2009; Sokhey and Djupe 2014). But with a handful of exceptions
(Fitzgerald 2013; Settle 2018), researchers do not tend to deeply explore
how people interpret the meaning of “political” when they are asked to
recount those conversations. Nor do researchers probe deeply into how
people feel during the conversation itself. We would systematically miss
Joe’s negative emotional experience discussing politics by not pushing
further on the fact that he says he tries to avoid discussion. While some
work sheds light on the emotional motivations for and results of the kinds
of discussions Joe might have (Parsons 2010; Lyons and Sokhey 2014),
considerably less is known about the considerations inside people’s heads
during a political conversation.

The bottom line: Questions about the rates and nature of political
discussion are difficult to ask and answer. Scholars have wildly different
definitions of political discussion (or conversation, talk, deliberation,
interaction), and “talking about politics” means different things to differ-
ent people (Eveland, Morey, and Hutchens 2011; Morey and Eveland
2016). Following points carefully raised by these scholars, we note that
the most commonly used political discussion survey items are far too
blunt to capture the nuances of the behavior. Analyzing data from full
networks, Morey and Eveland (2016) find that dyads tend to agree on
whether they had any conversation, but do not agree on whether they
discussed politics. This suggests that individuals have different conceptu-
alizations of what constitutes a political discussion, and these different
conceptualizations can make it difficult to measure the existence or fre-
quency of discussion.
Turning toward the who of conversations, Joe, like most Americans,
would report on a survey that he talks most frequently with those with
whom he has a close relationship, such as his wife and in-laws. He also
would probably report that most of the people with whom he talks tend
to agree with him (Mutz 2006), though disagreement persists in his
network (Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague 2004). A survey might also
pick up that Joe is exposed to more diversity of opinion in the workplace,
consistent with findings that coworkers are an important source of cross-
cutting discussion (Mutz and Mondak 2006). But these measures would
miss several important aspects of the who in Joe’s political conversation
experiences. We would not fully understand the effect of the group
context and power dynamic in his water-cooler conversation, both of
which have been shown to be important (e.g. Richey 2009). And although
we would accurately identify that he encounters disagreement at work,
we would likely misattribute to these conversations the ability to influence
Joe. Eveland, Morey, and Hutchens (2011) importantly find that political
conversations with neighbors and coworkers are more likely to be in the
form of small talk, motivated by the desire to pass time, while political
conversations with strong ties, such as partners and relatives, are gener-
ally motivated by more instrumental factors, for example, trying to form
an opinion or inform others. Joe’s experience seems to fit this finding, but
our standard survey questions would likely miss this nuance and how the
nature of his various social relationships affects the tenor of different
conversations.
Our understanding of where political discussion takes place is often
deduced from whom people report as political discussants. As a result, we

assume that most discussion takes place in the workplace and at home
(e.g. Conover, Searing, and Crewe 2002),3 where Americans spend most
of their time. But discussions take place in other locations as well, such as
regular discussion groups that emerge out of civic or community associ-
ations (Cramer 2004, 2006, 2008), barbershops (Harris-Lacewell 2010),
or in public spaces such as social gatherings and pubs, although these
locations facilitate political discussion far less frequently than the work-
place (Conover, Searing, and Crewe 2002). Churches also play an import-
ant role as a place for people to exchange political opinions, especially for
African Americans.
A major problem with common measures of the if, when, who, and
where of political conversation is that they are narrowly focused on
conversations with regular discussants. As a result of the survey ques-
tions, scholars would miss the multitude of incidental interactions in Joe’s
day, ranging from the fleeting exchange on the bus, akin to a “snort of
derision” in Mansbridge’s (1999) terms, to the political talk briefly inter-
woven into the conversation around the office water cooler. These con-
versations do not necessarily influence Joe’s policy opinions – he is not
learning from them or hoping to persuade anyone. But collectively, they
are a regular, albeit diverse, feature of his daily life that could help him
grasp the political world around him and shape his expectations of what
kinds of people tend to believe what kinds of things about politics. While
regular political discussants might be more influential on standard polit-
ical behaviors such as voting, learning, and attitude formation, ignoring
the full set of interactions might constrain the scholarly understanding of
how conversations can affect broader attitudes toward politics. Relatedly,
we have not captured anything about the conversations that Joe could
have had but successfully avoided. The active avoidance of political
conversation may affect Joe in ways that extend beyond the simple
absence of discussion.
Where social scientists might really come up short is in the answers to
the questions of why and how. Why do people talk about politics? The
vast majority of Americans do talk about politics, at least sometimes.
Many scholars start their inquiry with an assumption about what motiv-
ates political discussion, but few have tested these assumptions. The
conventional answer is that people communicate about politics to achieve
instrumental goals related to decision-making. They communicate in
order to learn and to persuade others. Research stemming from this
assumption finds evidence that circumstantially supports it: people
who are more vested in the political system – those who are more

knowledgeable, more interested in politics, and more attached to their

partisan identities – are more likely to report talking about politics more
regularly (e.g. Straits 1991; McLeod, Daily, Guo, Eveland, Bayer, Yang,
and Wang 1996, p. 196; McLeod, Scheufele, and Moy 1999, p. 324;
Huckfeldt 2001, p. 431; Klofstad 2009) .
Yet, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that people are not all that
interested in talking about politics, despite the fact that they do report
conversing. For example, Ulbig and Funk (1999) find that only 35 percent
of their respondents reported enjoying political discussions. When we
asked the same question in 2016, only 26 percent of our respondents
reported enjoying political discussions. Despite the fact that most people
report that they talk about politics with at least some regularity, it does
not appear to be an enjoyable experience for many of them. A particularly
telling example is a recent study focused on conversations that happen at
Thanksgiving dinner tables (Chen and Rhola 2018). The authors found
that political disagreement shortens the duration of holiday gatherings, a
scholarly acknowledgment of the common wisdom that holiday dinner
conversations can be incredibly stressful.4 In fact, just after the 2016
election, Pew Research Center reported that “with the holidays approach-
ing, 39% of U.S. adults say their families avoid conversations about
politics” (Oliphant and Smith 2016).5 This suggests that individuals
might engage in political discussions with less instrumental – and perhaps
more social – motivations. Eveland, Morey, and Hutchens (2011) find
that the most commonly reported motivations for political discussion are
indeed social: to pass the time or stimulate an interesting debate.
Learning, informing, and persuading were the least common motivations
for engaging in a political discussion.
What most quantitative approaches to studying political discussion
would miss completely is how Joe’s desire to avoid political conversation
affects his decision-making with respect to when he does talk and what he
says. Thus, a better framing of the questions about the why and how of
political discussion would be: How do people’s motivations for political
discussion affect the way they navigate those conversations?
Navigating Political Discussion

What motivates some people to drive straight into political discussion and
others to pump (or slam on) the brakes to avoid it? Once in a political
discussion, how do people steer around – or crash into – obstacles such as
conflict, lack of knowledge, or social pressures? Quantitatively driven

answers to these foundational questions are surprisingly hard to come by,

but a close read of several important texts in the field reveals convergence
on a proposed explanation: political discussion is driven more by social
than instrumental motivations. Many people do not want to talk about
politics because of the social and psychological costs involved in doing so.
At the micro level, political scientists focusing on the psychology under-
pinning political discussion have zeroed in on the role of personality and
other individual traits. For example, Hibbing, Ritchie, and Anderson
(2011) argue that “psychological predispositions captured by individual
personality traits play an important role in shaping the kinds of conversa-
tions citizens engage in, the setting for those conversations, and the influ-
ence discussion may or may not have on the individual . . . Individuals can
differ in their reactions to political discussions based on their own person-
alities” (p. 602). Research on the Big Five personality traits and political
discussion suggests that individuals who are more extraverted, more open
to experience, and more conscientious discuss politics more often (e.g.
Mondak and Halperin 2008). Those who are more extraverted and more
open to experience have larger discussion networks with more disagree-
ment, while those who are higher in agreeableness tend to be exposed to
less disagreement (e.g. Mondak et al. 2010; Gerber et al. 2012). A similar
vein in the literature highlights the role of conflict avoidance, demonstrat-
ing that conflict-avoidant people talk about politics less frequently (Ulbig
and Funk 1999). Relatedly, Mutz’s use of the notion of civil orientation to
conflict (2002, 2006) captures the idea that some people emphasize social
harmony while expressing dissenting views.
Expanding a bit more reveals another thread: social considerations are
an important part of the mystery of why people do and do not want to
talk about politics. Cramer (2004) writes that “much of political behavior
is rooted in social rather than political processes” (p. 8) and argues that
recognition and activation of shared social identities help people make
sense of the political world, facilitating political discussion in the process.
Conover and Searing (2005) write that “social motives may be much
more important than we have assumed” (p. 278–279) based on their
focus group research. Mutz (2006) suggests that social accountability –
or the idea that being held accountable to multiple, conflicting constitu-
encies makes people uncomfortable and causes them anxiety because it
threatens social relationships (p. 106) – explains the adverse effect of
crosscutting exposure on voter turnout.
The scholars who have probed deeply into the role of social
considerations – Cramer, Eliasoph, Noelle-Neumann, Mutz, and

Conover and colleagues – have developed compelling explanations from

their mostly qualitative work, but they have not integrated those insights
into rigorous tests of the psychological and social mechanisms that under-
pin discussion more generally. Mutz’s work incorporates the importance
of social accountability and social harmony, but her empirical tests do not
focus on how these concepts affect the emergence of conversation or what
happens in the conversation itself. Scholars are thus left with the sugges-
tion of an answer – psychological and social considerations are important
factors motivating political discussion, perhaps more important than
instrumental motivations – but no quantitative analysis that explores
how such considerations affect the decisions people make about when
and how to discuss politics.
As a field, our theorization about political discussion has centered on
instrumental, politically oriented outcomes, such as the effects of discus-
sion on information transmission and participation. But when quantita-
tive work glosses over or assumes away the very social and psychological
features that make discussion a unique form of political behavior, we lose
the forest through the trees. Decades of foundational qualitative work tell
us that political discussion is a social process: It is complicated, nuanced,
and potentially costly. Political discussion is not entirely driven by instru-
mental political goals, and thus we should expect that it affects more than
just vote choice, public opinion, and political engagement. Discussion has
the power to fundamentally shape social relationships and how individ-
uals think about each other. But without a unifying framework to bring
together the contributions of instrumental and social considerations, our
field will struggle to adequately engage these social and psychological
dynamics and incorporate them meaningfully into future research.
Our Contribution
Our book addresses this missing piece in our understanding of interper-
sonal political interaction, a behavior some consider to be the lifeblood of
democracy. Why, despite high rates of reported political discussion, do so
many Americans dislike talking about politics? And how do these consid-
erations affect the way that people communicate? We argue that we need
to consider the psychological experience of political discussion as navi-
gating a social process that is rife with potential challenges to one’s sense
of self and one’s relationships with others. Our argument emphasizes two
features of political discussion. The first is that political discussion is an
inherently social behavior. As such, we follow seminal research before us

and argue that without assessing the social factors influencing the decision
to talk about politics, we cannot fully understand who talks about polit-
ics, with whom, under what conditions, and with what consequence.
Variation in the cognitive resources of political conversation, such as
interest in politics or political knowledge, or in instrumental goals related
to learning and persuasion cannot fully explain people’s motivation to
seek or avoid discussion, although considerations related to information
certainly are part of the story.
The second is that political discussion is a process. Previous research
on the causes and consequences of political discussion tends to focus
rigidly on the inputs and outputs of discussion, but not the mechanisms
of the relationship between them. For example, dozens of quantitative
empirical studies examine properties of political discussion networks,
such as the amount of disagreement, to assess the effects of political
discussion, such as political knowledge, political engagement, or vote
choice. These studies rarely measure the actual experience of discussion:
who is available to discuss politics, how people scan their environment to
find (or avoid) discussants, how these factors affect the probability that
politics emerges in discussion and whether people decide to engage, the
group dynamics in the conversations that do occur, and what opinions
people actually express. Those studies that do focus on discussion itself –
such as who discusses politics, when, and with whom (e.g. Minozzi et al.
2020) – do not always capture the iterative nature of discussion, or how
people’s experience in one political discussion affects their decision-
making in the next one.
This book is an effort to open the lid on the processes that lead up to a
political discussion and the implications of the conversations that do
happen. Our approach is to build on what we already know about
political discussion, focusing on the gaps in our knowledge as a field,
resulting from untested assumptions and limited methodologies in previ-
ous work. We apply new measurement techniques in order to better study
the decision-making processes that lead to the initiation of discussion, the
nuances of the interactions that do occur, and the consequences of those
conversations on a wide set of political and social outcomes. We view our
contribution in three parts.
First, we provide a new framework, the 4D Framework, for conceptu-
alizing the feedback cycle of interpersonal political interactions. It models
political discussion as a process motivated by people’s pursuit of the goals
that have been shown to motivate other forms of interpersonal behavior:
accuracy, affirmation, and affiliation. Previous work focuses on the inputs

and outputs of political discussion, such as how the partisan composition

of a person’s discussion network affects her level of tolerance, but it
deemphasizes the mechanism of the discussion process. Our contribution
is to provide a unifying framework that synthesizes the qualitative work
emphasizing social considerations with the quantitative work that nar-
rowly focuses on the precursors and outcomes of discussion.
This framework incorporates a wider aperture on both the behavior
we seek to explain and the consequences of that behavior. What do we
mean when we talk about “interpersonal political interaction”? For our
purposes, we focus on instances where two or more people communicate
face-to-face6 about topics that relate to politics, policy, policymakers, or
about topics that reveal the political opinions or identities of the discuss-
ants. We will use the terms “political discussion,” “political conversa-
tion,” and “political interaction” interchangeably in this book to refer to
these interactions.7 Importantly, we consider interactions with both regu-
lar discussants and incidental discussants. We explore conversations that
individuals were unsuccessful in escaping. We also study those inter-
actions that do not happen but could have – the discussion opportunities
that fail to materialize because a person actively avoids them. We note
that the conversations that do not happen may be just as important for
understanding downstream consequences as the conversations that do.
The 4D Framework also incorporates the effect of people’s discussion
behavior on a wider range of outcomes than those that have been studied
before. Instead of thinking about political discussion as a political behav-
ior that narrowly affects political outcomes – such as learning, tolerance,
trust, and voting – we think of political discussion as a social behavior
that should broadly affect social outcomes, such as social estrangement8
and psychological forms of polarization.
Our second major contribution is an emphasis on exploring the factors
that shape the countless choices individuals make during the cycle of
political discussion – both in terms of which conversations to pursue
and how to engage in the discussions that result. We separate and study
four distinct stages of discussion in our 4D Framework: Detection,
Decision, Discussion, and Determination. At each of these four stages,
people make choices about their behavior after weighing considerations
of potential costs and benefits. Some of these choices are active and
deliberate, while others happen so quickly that people might not be
consciously aware of them, especially if they have formed behavioral
habits guiding how they typically engage in political discussion. We
expect variation in not only the decisions people make when faced with

these choices, but also in the salience of different types of decisions. For
example, someone who loves to talk about politics with anyone who will
listen is unlikely to spend much time thinking about the decision to
engage, while that same decision could be quite salient to someone whose
desire to talk politics is contingent on holding similar opinions as a
potential discussant.
We spend several chapters unpacking the kinds of considerations that
happen in advance of and during a discussion. In order to do this, we
deploy a set of methodological tools that are new or underutilized in
previous work on political discussion. We asked people to tell us about
their political conversations in their own words. We used behavioral
economics approaches to infer people’s preferences. We hooked people
up to heart rate monitors and then asked them to talk about politics with
others. As a result, we do not address the metrics of discussion that are
well trod – discussion frequency, discussion network composition, or
downstream participatory behaviors. Instead, we focus on asking ques-
tions that have not received much attention. For example, how do people
recognize if they agree or disagree with someone before a conversation
begins? Under what conditions do people try to avoid political conversa-
tions? How do they perceive the opportunities and benefits of discussion,
and what concerns them about the possibility of discussion with certain
kinds of people?
This focus on decision-making reveals new explanations for patterns
that long have been detected in Americans’ discussion networks. For
example, many people have studied discussion network composition in
an effort to disentangle the effects of selection versus influence in the
development of political opinions. We demonstrate that the preference
for like-minded discussion is not simply a reflection of environmental
availability of discussants, but rather reflects active choices about
avoiding certain kinds of interactions.
What has not received adequate attention in the discussion literature –
though it has in the deliberation literature (e.g. Karpowitz and
Mendelberg 2014) – is the extent to which social factors affect the choices
people make about voicing their political opinions, even if they are
interested in politics. People are aware of whether their opinions are in
the majority or minority, and whether they are at an informational
advantage or disadvantage. These group dynamics – such as the perceived
knowledge gap between potential discussants, or the power hierarchy
between individuals – up the ante of the social repercussions people might
face for expressing their political views (e.g. Noelle-Neumann 1974;

Glynn, Hayes, and Shanahan 1997; Scheufele and Moy 2000; Morey,
Eveland, and Hutchens 2012), increasing the proportion of people who
choose to silence or censor themselves. While the overall frequency of
political discussion in the United States has remained relatively high, the
rates of self-censorship have increased, largely due to micro-level fears of
social isolation from expressing unpopular views (Gibson and Sutherland
2020). As a result, the largely homophilous conversations in which people
participate reflect a series of behavioral choices that have consequences
beyond the information to which a person is exposed during a discussion
or the effects of that information on learning, persuasion, or vote choice.
Our third major contribution is to emphasize the role of individual
differences that shape the way people navigate the political discussion
landscape. Throughout our inquiry, we are focused on the fact that there
is significant heterogeneity in people’s attitudes, expectations, and experi-
ences with political discussion. We assess the way that demographic,
political, and psychological dispositions moderate how people interpret
the demands and ramifications of potentially contentious social inter-
actions about politics, with an eye toward evaluating what broader
implications that has for the composition of people who most vocally
discuss politics. While we are not the first to consider the role of individ-
ual dispositions in political discussion behavior, we more tightly map
theories about which kinds of traits should matter for which kinds of
decisions within the process of a political discussion.
       

  ?
In the era of social media, fake news, and decreasing trust in the media,
why should we shine our light on the psychological factors of face-to-face
interpersonal conversation? Social scientists have studied the way people
talk about politics for more than sixty years. Are the remaining puzzles
important enough to pursue? Our answer is a decided “yes.”
Exposure to divergent viewpoints is a fundamental tenet of participa-
tory democracy. But as others have documented, Americans are increas-
ingly siloed away from those who hold differing viewpoints (Mason
2018). As a result of geographic sorting, religious sorting, residential
segregation, zoning laws – and the multitude of other factors that serve
to separate people based on race, class, and education level – Americans
today live and work with people who share many of their identities and
backgrounds.

Why Should We Care about Social Psychology? 13
Many point to the Internet and social media as the ideal way to amplify
the opportunities for exposure to diverse perspectives. But we are increas-
ingly pessimistic about the possibility of digital technologies to provide
the kind of exposure that can foster meaningful exchanges of ideas. In our
separate research agendas, we observe that people quickly recognize and
negatively evaluate people with whom they disagree on Facebook (Settle
2018), and that the information that is transmitted in short bits of written
communication deteriorates in ways that undermine the value of socially
transmitted information (Carlson 2018, 2019). Online interpersonal com-
munication can amplify many of the negative behaviors that both scholars
and the public care about deeply, such as information distortion (Carlson
2018) and belief in misinformation (Anspach and Carlson 2020).
In an era in which Americans are able to select into echo chambers and
the mass media has become largely compartmentalized by the preferences
of its viewers, face-to-face interpersonal interaction remains a conduit
through which people might be exposed to opinions that are different
than their own. People may encounter fewer individuals who differ
greatly from them, but the people they do encounter become dispropor-
tionately important as opportunities for perspective and dialogue.
There is reason to think that interpersonal interactions could both help
and hurt the various facets of the polarization problem America faces in
the twenty-first century. Scholars have explored the possibility that polit-
ical discussion could foster tolerance for the other side (Mutz 2002; Mutz
and Mondak 2006) or help depolarize attitudes (Parsons 2010).
Interpersonal communication can also amplify political learning under
some conditions (Carlson 2019; Ahn, Huckfeldt, and Ryan 2014). But at
the same time, interpersonal interaction can further the deleterious effects
of attitude polarization from partisan media (Druckman, Levendusky,
and McLain 2018). Much of the evidence suggests that disagreeable
deliberation can actually facilitate entrenchment and deepen polarization
(Wojcieszak 2011) or may increase ambivalence in a way that undermines
participation (Mutz 2006), but it is possible that this “dark side” of
disagreement is largely concentrated among people who are in a complete
opinion minority, rather than those who are exposed to a mix of opinions
(Nir 2011; Bello 2012).
How do we know if interpersonal interaction will be constructive or
damaging for the health of our democracy? The findings in this book are
important because they will guide researchers in understanding which
kinds of political interactions actually occur and with what consequence.
The argument and evidence presented in this book highlight a

fundamental tension in modern American politics. The fabric holding

Americans together is comprised of the interactions people have with
others in daily life. The effort to maintain this social fabric – to nurture
and retain relationships with family, friends, and colleagues, and to
preserve esteem in their eyes – may in fact undermine people’s ability to
communicate genuinely and effectively across political divides.
At present, it seems that many Americans opt out of deeper conversa-
tions about politics in order to preserve their social relationships. If
interpersonal interaction is to be part of the solution to polarization
instead of one of its contributing factors, researchers must address this
core tension. Doing so necessitates that social scientists explore the deci-
sions that shape our willingness to engage in political discussions with
others, as well as the implications of those choices.
Without assessing the social factors contributing to the “two-step
flow” of information – how information flows from the mass media to
a few who are interested enough to read the news and then on to their
friends through conversation – we, as social scientists, cannot update our
expectations about how it should operate in an era with high levels of
affective and social polarization, when people have unprecedented access
to information both about politics and each other’s views. We must focus
on the widest definition of those interactions – the inadvertent, the
inescapable, the injurious – if we want to understand the full range of
implications for our civic culture. By better understanding how
Americans experience face-to-face political discussions in the affectively
polarized world in which they live, we can begin to consider the ways in
which discussion could remedy some of the major sociopolitical problems
Americans face today.
      

In Chapter 2, we outline the theoretical core of our inquiry. To fully
comprehend the experience of political discussion, we must think more
broadly about the full set of considerations that structure people’s deci-
sions. We introduce the concept of the 4D Framework to the process of
political discussion, articulating what happens at each of four stages
preceding, during, and after the opportunity to discuss politics. Our
framework emphasizes the role of social considerations, assuming that
people’s primary goals may not be to acquire information or persuade
others in a conversation but rather to preserve their self-esteem and social
ties with their potential discussants. We also introduce the idea that

Roadmap for the Rest of the Book 15
individual differences between people can make some more sensitive than
others to various features of their context and their discussants. Our
exploration of the 4D Framework uses an eclectic set of methodological
techniques. Chapter 3 is an overview of the methodological core of our
inquiry. We explain the key operationalizations of the concepts in the 4D
Framework and provide context and details for the studies that appear in
multiple chapters throughout the book.
Chapter 4 commences the empirical tests of our argument, beginning
with Stage 1 of the 4D Framework: Detection. We directly tackle a
question buried implicitly in previous findings, as well as our own, that
people prefer like-minded discussants: How do people detect the political
views of others? People must be able to do this if they make active
selections about their discussion partners. The stakes of discussion may
be higher in a polarized environment, but the readily available cues
stemming from a divided and politicized society make the process of
sorting into amicable discussions easier. We show that individuals are
able to use a variety of cues to infer political leanings, including more
obvious cues such as demographic characteristics and extremely subtle
cues, such as first names, pet preferences, and movie preferences. We then
explore the existence of stereotypes that individuals hold about partisans,
under the assumption that these attitudes could affect the ability to
recognize others’ views and willingness to engage in a discussion. Given
that individuals are (differentially) able to recognize the viewpoints of
others, what assumptions do those identities trigger when a person is
deciding whether to engage in a conversation? We find that, consistent
with research on affective polarization, individuals hold negative stereo-
types about outpartisans: They ascribe more negative personality traits to
outpartisans and consider them to be ill-informed, ignorant, and overly
reliant on partisan media. People make these judgments even about out-
partisans they personally know.
Under what conditions are people most likely to discuss politics, and
how do they perceive the costs and benefits of potential conversations of
different configurations? Our focus in Chapter 5 is on the moment of
Decision itself (Stage 2). We use three novel approaches to answer this
question, including a semi-structured discussion experiment, a series of
more than a dozen vignette experiments, and the “name-your-price”
paradigm. The semi-structured discussion experiment, which we call the
True Counterfactual Study, asked participants to reflect upon and
describe either political discussions in which they recently engaged or
political discussions in which they could have engaged, but chose to

avoid. Comparing these descriptions tells us that discussions that were

avoided tended to have larger groups with more disagreement. In the
vignette experiments, we show participants scenarios in which a hypo-
thetical character is presented with the opportunity to discuss politics,
manipulating characteristics of the social context and political discuss-
ants. We find that individuals were more likely to engage in the discussion
when they were in the political majority, when they were more know-
ledgeable than the other discussants, and when the discussion was with
strong social ties. Across all of the different contexts, we find that
approximately 20 percent of our subjects anticipated that the character
in the vignette would deflect a discussion by remaining silent or changing
the subject.
We then utilize the “name-your-price” paradigm, which we introduce
in a recent article (Settle and Carlson 2019). The idea here is to construct
a variety of discussion contexts, similar to our vignettes, and ask partici-
pants how much they would need to be paid to participate in a study that
involved a discussion in each group type. We find that individuals
demand more compensation to discuss both political and nonpolitical
topics with those who disagree, especially when that disagreement is
characterized in terms of partisan identity.
That people have a preference for like-minded discussants in small-
group environments comports with previous findings, but we show that
these preferences exist even when people have other options. What is
surprising is that people also appear to have a slight preference for
discussing politics with others of their same – or lower – knowledge level,
a finding that runs counter to normative ideals of the power of opinion
leadership to rectify the informational deficits of the average American.
The analysis exploring the Discussion stage of the 4D Framework
(Stage 3) is split into two chapters, Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 6 is about
what people feel during a political discussion, captured using psycho-
physiological measurement during two different lab experiments. In the
Psychophysiological Anticipation Study, we measure changes in partici-
pants’ heart rates and skin conductance (how sweaty their palms get) in
response to anticipating a political discussion. Importantly, we find that
individuals had a much larger psychophysiological response to even the
thought of engaging in a political discussion than they did to observing
both political and nonpolitical uncivil discourse on video. Additionally,
while some of these results are not statistically significant, we find sug-
gestive evidence that participants who were randomly assigned to antici-
pate a discussion with an outpartisan, especially if the discussant was

described as more knowledgeable, had a stronger psychophysiological

response. In the Psychophysiological Experience Study, we measure psy-
chophysiological responses during actual conversations. We present evi-
dence that individuals exhibit many of the psychophysiological signs of
discomfort while actually discussing politics, especially when the conver-
sation was disagreeable.
Building on these findings, in Chapter 7 we turn to better understand-
ing what people say during political conversations. We use a series of
vignette experiments to demonstrate what people anticipate a hypothet-
ical character will do, a technique designed to get around the social
desirability we expect taints many self-reports of discussion behavior.
Here, we are focused less on simply whether people engage in the discus-
sion or not, and instead focus on what they anticipate the character would
say. Which opinions do they express? How comfortable do they feel? We
validate the findings from this set of survey experiments with additional
evidence from laboratory studies where we are able to measure what
people say, as well as how they say it. Our vignette experiments reveal a
modal expectation that the character will express his or her true opinion,
but a substantial minority of people expect the character to self-censor,
conform to the group, or remain silent, especially when the character is
less knowledgeable and in an opinion minority. We observe similar
patterns in lab experiments, finding that the vast majority of people
conformed at least once in an Asch-style study, and that individuals
verbally hedge when describing their identities in another study.
Chapter 8 considers the last stage (Stage 4) of the 4D Framework:
Determination. Here, we examine the implications of a person’s discus-
sion experience, focusing on how individuals anticipate relationships
changing after intense political conversations and how discussion behav-
ior is correlated with a variety of attitudes about social polarization. We
use our nationally representative survey data to capture individuals’
reflections on their own social estrangement behaviors as well as their
projections of such behavior onto hypothetical characters in the vignette
experiments. We uncover that about a quarter of Americans have dis-
tanced themselves socially from a friend because of politics. Americans
have done so in a variety of ways, including stopping all political discus-
sion, ceasing all communication, forbidding their children from playing
together, and severing all social ties completely.
The final empirical chapter (Chapter 9) explores how individual dis-
positions affect the way people navigate the 4D Framework. After explor-
ing the role of gender, race, political interest, and partisanship strength,

we explore how variation in social anxiety, conflict avoidance, and will-

ingness to self-censor are associated with our ability and desire to Detect
others’ views (Stage 1), the Decision to engage in a discussion (Stage 2),
the Discussion itself (Stage 3) and the Determination in the aftermath of a
discussion (Stage 4). We find that demographic dispositions exert less
consistent influence on political discussion than political and psycho-
logical dispositions. Gender is largely influential at Stage 2 – women are
more likely to avoid political discussion than are men – but does not exert
much influence in later stages. Race and ethnicity do not play a large role
throughout the cycle – at least not that we are able to uncover with our
research designs and samples. Interest in politics and strength of partisan-
ship influence almost every stage: Stronger partisans and those more
interested in politics are more likely to detect others’ views in advance,
engage in political discussion, and expect vignette characters to express
their true opinions. The psychological dispositions add nuance, and all
three are influential at unique stages of the cycle.
Finally, in Chapter 10, we assess the broader consequences of the
process of political discussion for the health of American democracy.
We suggest that this process – while not responsible for psychological
forms of polarization among the mass public – certainly contributes to its
perpetuation by decreasing the likelihood that Americans engage in
meaningful exchange with others whose viewpoints differ. On the one
hand, it may be preferable that Americans seem to prioritize protecting
their relationships, stretching the social fabric across the political divide.
But there are reasons to be concerned that this process exacerbates
stereotyped thinking and potentially damages our ability to learn effect-
ively from conversations. It appears that Americans do not want to
follow with the prescription of previous researchers who suggest that
informational ailments can be remedied if individuals talk with know-
ledgeable others.
It is our hope that this book sheds light on how political discussion
operates in America today. Our theoretical and empirical contributions
draw on vast literatures in political science, psychology, communication,
and sociology to unpack assumptions made by previous research on
discussion. As we explain more in Chapter 10, we also believe that this
book’s importance extends beyond scholarly debates. There are countless
news articles citing public concern about heightened social tensions
driven by politics. Some individuals lament their inability to have a civil
conversation about politics, while others hide their views to avoid social
repercussions. The research presented in this book helps us characterize

why these tensions persist, as well as which specific features of a discus-

sion foster more discomfort, disengagement, untruthful political expres-
sion, and distaste for the other side.
We do not purport to have the panacea for the problems we uncover.
But we close the book with our thoughts about how we might reverse the
trend toward avoiding contentious political discussions. We consider the
ways in which Americans could channel their desire to preserve their
social relationships into a force for constructive political dialogue.

2
The 4D Framework of Political Discussion
People make thousands of small decisions each and every day from the
moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. Some research,
made popular in the strategic management world, suggests that we make
over 35,000 decisions a day (see Krockow 2018 for a discussion). More
than 200 of these decisions are about food alone (Wansink and Sobal
2007). In fact, we make so many decisions on a daily basis that by
necessity most do not feel like a conscious choice. We process the
information around us to inform our behavior, often without ever fully
stopping to consider alternative forms of action.
While cognitive psychologists have focused on the subconscious, auto-
matic, and often irrational ways that humans arrive at their behavioral
choices, political scientists have largely conceptualized behavioral choice
in the realm of politics as conscious, deliberate, and calculated. In this
conceptualization, when people report that they have engaged in a polit-
ical discussion, it is because they made an active choice to do so. Yet, as
we highlighted in the opening vignette of the book, the “choice” to engage
in political discussion is actually the result of a series of micro decisions
that reflect a varying degree of agency on the part of an individual. Many
of the forces that structure the likelihood and experience of a political
conversation – the context in which individuals find themselves, the
distribution of others’ opinions – are out of individuals’ control at the
moment a potential discussion emerges. The decision to talk politics
reflects an assessment of the costs and benefits of doing so, given the
circumstances in the moment the choice is made.
In this chapter we advance our argument that the decisions about
whether and how to engage in a political discussion are shaped by many
20

Political Discussion as Interpersonal Interaction 21
of the same forces that guide other interpersonal interactions. The classic
depiction of political discussion behavior suggests that it emerges as a
result of one’s interest in politics, shaped by one’s personality and the
availability of discussion partners. But we argue that this depiction is
incomplete. We propose the 4D Framework to characterize the process
of political discussion at four stages – Detection, Decision, Discussion,
and Determination – during which people’s decisions about how to
engage are motivated by the same goals underpinning interpersonal inter-
actions more generally: to be accurate, to affirm a positive self-concept,
and to affiliate with others. Considerations are shaped by the contextual
factors of the conversation as well as people’s psychological and psycho-
physiological dispositions. Over time, people develop more generalized
propensities and preferences for political discussion based on their previ-
ous experiences navigating the four stages of past discussions.
Focusing on the process of discussion encourages an assessment of
facets of political discussion that have remained un- or under-explored
to date. Our attention shifts from the outcomes of a discussion to the
anticipation of a discussion; from the composition of a discussion net-
work to the experience of a discussion itself; and from an emphasis on
learning and persuasion to an emphasis on social evaluation and relation-
ship management. Reorienting our focus in this way suggests that the
variation in political discussion behavior between people is driven in part
by a set of individual differences that extend beyond political interest,
related to how people process their social environments more generally.
    

Scholars using both qualitative and quantitative methods have found that
political discussion is most likely to occur among those with whom we
talk about other important matters. A review of the qualitative work on
political discussion sheds light on why: Political talk emerges out of
interactions about other topics. Cramer (2004) notes that “whether polit-
ical conversations last two minutes or thirty, the transitioning between
them and other subjects of life is virtually seamless” (p. 40) and that
“topics related to the government or politicians arise without any
fanfare—they slip in like talk about other subjects” (p. 83).
Where scholars using different methods tend to diverge is in their
assumptions about the motivations people have for political discussion.
Most scholars studying the quantitative patterns of political discussion
have emphasized its role in learning, persuasion, and mobilization

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
barber as it is. Well, up you goes to see ’er, Joe Tridge, gives me as
a reference, and gets the job temporary. And once you’re in, you
ain’t the man you used to be if anything short of dynamite gets you
out of that job again.”
“But why couldn’t you ’ave recommended me to start with?”
“I didn’t know in time. And, for another thing, she was so set on
getting a pattern of virtue. But when she finds things ’ave gone
wrong, and there’s no time to spare, unless she’s willing to lose
money by it, she won’t be so partic’lar, and she’ll overlook some of
your faults, Joe, if you keeps the rest of ’em dark.”
“You seem pretty sure things are going wrong,” said Mr. Tridge.
“I can feel it in me bones,” returned Mr. Dobb. “Anyway Mrs.
Jackson’s coming in the day after to-morrow to meet this chap at one
hundred and twenty-one, ’Igh Street. Now, I may be at the station
when ’e arrives, and pass the time of day with ’im.”
“I can ’ear the dawn breaking,” observed Mr. Tridge, humorously.
“You’ll tell ’im there’s nothing doing, and say you were sent by ’er to
meet ’im and tell ’im so. And she’ll think ’e never come?”
“Helementary, Joe,” criticized Mr. Dobb. “Most helementary! ’E’d
write to ’er when ’e got back, and then the fat ’ud be out of the frying-
pan and into the fire. No, I mean to fix it so that she’s finished with
’im for good and all two minutes after she’s first set eyes on ’im!”
“And ’ow do you do that?” asked Mr. Lock. “Mesmerism?”
“No, circumstantial hevidence,” returned Mr. Dobb, happily. “There’s
more people comes a cropper over circumstantial hevidence than
over the truth coming out by haccident, and that’s saying a lot!”
He glanced warily about him, and then raised his arms in a gesture
inviting closer heed to his words. Four heads bent over the table;
three pairs of ears listened attentively. From one pair of lips came a
whispered fluency of instruction and explanation. Finally, Mr. Dobb
sat back with simpering pride, and his three companions
unanimously expressed their awed respect for his brain-powers.
Again Mr. Dobb bent forward to add sundry details, promising to
instruct those selected for dramatic roles at a more private
opportunity on the morrow.
Mr. Samuel Clark, flattered by having the star part assigned to him,
promised that he would rehearse on every possible occasion during
the following day. Some twenty-two hours later Mr. Dobb called at
Mr. Clark’s lodgings to see whether he was fulfilling this promise, and
Mr. Clark at once afforded him something in the nature of a dress
rehearsal.
“Puffect!” declared Horace, with enthusiasm. “A born actor couldn’t
do it better, especially when you rolls your eyes up like that. I see it
was blowing a bit fresh when I come along just now, so there’ll be a
nice little ground-swell off the ’arbour-mouth to-morrow. ’Ave you
arranged to ’ave colic to-morrow, like I told you?”
“All fixed up; and I’ve got some one else to look after the ferry for the
day, and I’ve borrowed a small boat, like what you said. And I shall
be waiting where you told me all the morning.”
“That’s the idea!” approved Horace. “And now we’ll just go and see
if Peter Lock remembers all he’s got to say, and then we’ll see if the
clock in the ‘Jolly Sailors’ keeps good time.”
Mr. Horace Dobb was patrolling the platform of Shorehaven railway-
station next morning when the express from London came to a
standstill there.
Of the few passengers that thankfully alighted, the majority were
sailormen. Several women and children made up a goodly share of
the rest of the number. Of the half-dozen residue, five were
gentlemen known to Mr. Dobb by sight or personally. The sixth was
a complete stranger, and Mr. Dobb, with a pious expression of
gratitude for this simplification of his task of identifying Mrs.
Jackson’s expected visitor, at once approached him.
“Are you going straight back to the Town ’All, Mr. Binson?” asked
Horace, innocently.
“I’m afraid you’re making an error,” was the reply. “My name is not
Binson.”
“Mean to tell me you’re not Mr. Binson, our town-clerk of Shore’aven
’ere?” demanded Mr. Dobb, incredulously.
“No, I am not. I am a complete stranger to this town.”
“Well, well,” marvelled Mr. Dobb, “you are the exact image of Mr.
Binson, that’s all I can say.”
“Indeed?” returned the other, with scant interest in the coincidence.
“Well, as I say, I am a perfect stranger here. I should be glad, in fact,
if you would tell me the nearest way to the High Street. I have a
business appointment there.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Dobb, with equal listlessness. “Which end of ’Igh
Street? It makes a difference ’ow you goes from ’ere, according to
which end you want.”
“Number one hundred and twenty-one. It’s a barber’s shop.”
“I know it,” said Mr. Dobb. “Name of Bonner.”
“At present, yes,” conceded the other. “It really belongs to a lady,
though—to Mrs. Jackson. Perhaps you know her?”
“’Eard of ’er, I fancy,” returned Mr. Dobb, cursorily. “Pity you got out
at this station, though. Your nearest would ’ave been the station the
other side of the river. ’Owever, you come along of me, and I’ll see
you on the right road. Shall we just ’ave one gargle before we start?”
“Gargle?” asked the other one, in perplexity.
“Tonic,” elucidated Mr. Dobb. “Drink.”
“Thank you, no,” was the reply. “I am a lifelong abstainer from all
alcoholic drinks.”
“Just as you like,” said Mr. Dobb, readily. “Well, come along with me,
and I’ll take you down to the ferry and get you taken across the river,
and you’ll soon be there.”
“I didn’t know there was another station. I suppose the ferry is the
shortest way? I’m not a good sailor, and—”
Mr. Dobb’s eyes glinted.
“Oh, you’ll be all right!” he declared, and led the other man by
devious paths away from the neighbourhood of the High Street and
down to the harbour. To avoid questions which might be thorny to
answer, Mr. Dobb walked swiftly and a little in advance of his
companion, who, evidently deeming Mr. Dobb something of a
roisterous blade, seemed relieved by this arrangement. Arrived at
the quay, Mr. Dobb perceived the lounging form of Mr. Samuel Clark,
and led the stranger up to him.
“This gent wants you to row ’im over to near the ’Igh Street,
ferryman,” said Mr. Dobb. “Oh, and be as quick over it as you can,”
he added, holding Mr. Clark’s gaze; “because ’e says ’e’s not a very
good sailor.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” promised Mr. Clark; “but there’s a pretty
strong tide running, sir, don’t forget.”
“There’s no risk I suppose?” asked the visitor, smiling a little
anxiously.
“Bless you, no, sir,” declared Mr. Clark, cosily. “You’ll be as safe as
’ouses with me!”
With a courteous exchange of compliments, Mr. Dobb parted from
his new acquaintance. A minute later Mr. Clark had begun to convey
his passenger across the river, and Mr. Dobb was returning
homeward with the mien of one whose morning has been well spent.
“The current seems quite strong,” remarked the gentleman from
London.
“It are,” agreed Mr. Clark, straining at his sculls. “The current’s
always pretty strong ’ere when the tide’s running out. Like a mill-
stream sometimes, and the worst of it is that you don’t know it till you
get well out on it.”
“I hope we’ll land at the nearest point opposite.”
“We’ll try to land there,” amended Mr. Clark, gravely. “Matter of fact,
the tide’s stronger to-day than I’ve ever known it before.”
“We seem to be drifting further and further down the river,” observed
the other, now clearly falling prey to nerves. “Do you think it would
be better to turn round and go back?”
“Turn round, sir—with the tide running out?” asked Mr. Clark, in
accents almost scandalized. “Why, we should be capsized for dead,
certain sure, in less than no time. Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s
plain you’re no sailor, to talk like that. No, we can’t turn back.”
“Well, perhaps if you were to—to keep the—the front of the boat
pointed straighter for the bank opposite—”
“I can’t!” stated Mr. Clark. “The tide’s too strong. We must land as
near as we can, that’s all. I never knoo such a tide!” he ended,
pettishly.
“You—you don’t think there’s any chance of being carried out beyond
that lighthouse there at the very end, do you?”
“I ’ope and pray not!” soberly returned Mr. Clark.
He bent to his sculls with the greatest determination. A more
sophisticated passenger might have noticed that the ferryman was
pulling far harder with one arm than the other. The present fare,
however, was engrossed in observing more and more of the
opposite bank slip by.
“I do believe we shall be carried right out to sea!” he said at last, with
the utmost concern.
“Not if I can ’elp it!” denied Mr. Clark, and gave a straining,
spectacular display of oarsmanship.
“We shall be carried out to sea!”
Mr. Clark, shipping his skulls with commendable neatness, stared
owlishly at the passenger for a few moments, and then ejaculated:
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” with intensity of feeling.
“What is it? Whatever is it?”
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” repeated Mr. Clark. “It’s my ’eart!” he explained,
hollowly, and made a fearsome rolling of his eyes. “I’ve strained it,
or busted it, or something.”
“But—but we shall be capsized—drowned!”
“I couldn’t row another stroke just now, not to save my life,” groaned
Mr. Clark. “And you mustn’t try to take the oars, not even if you
know ’ow to manage ’em. You’d upset the boat if you tried to change
places with me, and you’d upset it if you tried to row from where
you’re sitting.”
His passenger, abandoning a half-formed intention, sat very still.
“Can’t we shout to the people ashore?” he asked, dismally, as the
little boat swept on past the harbour lighthouse.
“They couldn’t ’ear you,” moaned Mr. Clark.
“I could wave to them!”
“And upset the boat?” asked Mr. Clark, faintly. “She’s very, very easy
upset. The chap what owns this boat never tells ’er ’istory when ’e’s
’iring it out to visitors in the summer.”
“What can we do? What can we do?”
“Do? Why, nothing, except ’ope. We must just let the old boat float
out and trust to luck.”
“But—but—” protested the other, wildly.
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” bellowed Mr. Clark, in accents of acute anguish, as
the easiest way to foreclose vain conversation.
He sat back, groaning horribly, and rubbing various portions of his
anatomy, a fearful glare in his eyes.
The other man, watching him miserably, took a firm grasp of the seat
as the little craft began to pitch and dance over the turmoil of the
harbour-bar.
“We—we—we—” murmured Mr. Clark, with difficulty.
“We what?” asked the other, eagerly.
“I dunno,” said Mr. Clark, blankly.
There was dire silence. The little boat drifted further and further out,
till it was clear of the harbour, and here the scour of the tide carried it
well away from the roadstead.
Mr. Clark, opening one eye, shrewdly surveyed the locality.
“Just—just remembered,” he said. “We’ve got a anchor ’ere in the
locker—a anchor and any amount of cable. We’ll chuck it over, and
we’ll ride ’ere, as easy as easy, till the tide turns.”
“Don’t you feel strong enough to row us back now?”
“’Ave a ’eart, sir!” begged Mr. Clark, reproachfully. “It ’ud pull my
arms out of their sockets to row against this current. But we’ll be all
right ’ere. Once I get the anchor overboard, like this, we’ll be as safe
as safe.”
“All very well!” fulminated the passenger, recovering a little spirit
when he noted that the anchor had checked further seaward flow.
“But why—”
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” interrupted Mr. Clark. “For ’eaven’s sake, sir, don’t
go a-hagitating of me. When I ’ave attacks like this, I’m sometimes
liable to fits, and if I ’ave a fit ’ere, over goes the boat, and it’s all up
with both of us!”
“Oh, dear—oh, dear!” wailed the other, subsiding.
“I—I’m going to lie down in the bottom of the boat,” announced Mr.
Clark, wanly. “And if I smokes a pipe that might do me good, by
composing of my nerves.”
He kindled his pipe, and forthwith settled himself very comfortably in
the bottom of the boat. For headrest, he had a pillow he fortunately
happened to have brought with him. By a similar kindness of
chance, he had also provided himself with a thick overcoat, and with
this he now snugly covered himself.
Ensued a bleak period of human silence, accentuated by the lapping
of the water round the boat, and the phantom-like scream of
wheeling sea-birds. The passenger, sitting humped-up in an attitude
of complete dejection, surveyed the prone Mr. Clark and
subconsciously became aware of the gentle, rhythmic fall and rise of
the anchored craft.
“Really, it’s most unfortunate!” he whined, at last. “Most unfor—”
He stopped abruptly; his expression was a blend of alarm and self-
suspicion.
“Dear me!” he muttered. “Oh! I do hope—”
Mr. Clark, stirring, opened one eye sufficiently to see that the
complexion of his companion had passed to a strange olive-green
shade, and that he was holding his palm to his forehead. Mr. Clark
closed his eye again with a warm glow of satisfaction.
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Clark again glanced at his companion.
That gentleman’s complexion was now some shades lighter, though
still green of hue, and he was sitting with his arms hanging limply by
his side. His expression suggested that he had no further interest in
life.
“’Ow are you gettin’ on?” asked Mr. Clark.
The other man, turning a pair of glassy eyes on him, shook his head
dolefully and groaned. Mr. Clark, settling down again in comfort, was
callous enough to smile.
Another half-hour elapsed, with the stout ferryman taking life easily
at the bottom of the boat, and with the passenger gaining inside
information as to the treacherous nature of a small boat when
anchored in deep waters. Then, for the third time, Mr. Clark
appraised the state of his passenger and decided that the time for
convalescence had come.
Heartily remarking that the rest had done him a world of good, he
resumed his seat and began to scull towards the harbour with the
greatest of ease. His passenger, drooping woefully in his place,
evidenced no emotion whatever at this impending termination to his
troubles.
In excellent style Mr. Clark regained the sanctuary of the harbour
and drew near to the quay. Mr. Peter Lock, an alert sentinel there for
some while past, was waiting to greet him.
“Oh, poor fellow!” sympathized Mr. Lock. “He do look ill!”
“You needn’t trouble to feel sorry for ’im, Peter,” said Mr. Clark. “’E’s
in that state ’e don’t know what’s ’appening, or whether it’s ’appening
to ’im or somebody else. Got a bit of a ’eadache, ain’t you, sir?” he
bawled at the passenger.
“Oh!” groaned the sufferer, making feeble gestures with his hands
and showing the yellows of his eyes.
“Oh!” he moaned again, and would have collapsed had not Mr. Clark
passed a supportive arm round him.
“There you are, Peter. How’s that?” said Mr. Clark, with something
of a showman’s pride. “Give me a hand to get ’im out of the boat
and up on to the quay. All O.K., I s’pose?” he added, enigmatically.
Mr. Lock nodded.
“She’s going to ’ave tea with ’Orace’s missis, and she’s there now.
She’s been up to the station twice to see if a Mr. Briblett ’ad arrived,
but there was no trace of ’im.”
“Briblett,” murmured the passenger, dazedly. “That’s my name.
Don’t—oh, don’t bother me! I’m ill—ill!”
“’Orace ’as kept out of ’er way all the time, in case some one might
’ave seen ’im up at the station this morning,” whispered Mr. Lock.
“She might begin to smell a rat before the bomb goes off, if she
starts putting questions to ’im.”
With a certain inconsiderate vigour the two friends half-lifted, half-
dragged Mr. Briblett from the boat and assisted him up the steps to
the quay.
“A drop o’ brandy is the only thing to do this poor gent any good,”
prescribed Mr. Lock, producing a flask.
The stranger, although in a comatose condition, proved true to his
lifelong traditions, and feebly waved the stimulant aside.
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Lock, “if ’e won’t drink it, p’r’aps the smell of it
might do ’im good!”
Thus speaking, he delicately sprinkled Mr. Briblett’s shoulder with a
few drops of the spirit, and then very fraternally shared the
remainder with Mr. Clark.
“And now off we goes!” directed Mr. Lock, and, supported by the two
sailormen, the cadaverous Mr. Briblett tottered forward on two
swerving, unstable legs. Closed were Mr. Briblett’s eyes, and the
expression on his face was one of pained indifference to all
mundane affairs.
By quiet side-streets was Mr. Briblett conducted to the
neighbourhood of the little shop in Fore Street. Rounding a corner,
the trio at last reached that emporium. Mr. Lock remembered to
knock Mr. Briblett’s hat off for him, retrieving it with sundry muddy
adhesions, and replacing it on the sufferer’s head at a rakish angle.
Then the door of Mr. Dobb’s shop flew open, the three lurched over
the threshold, and Mr. Dobb quickly flitted in after them from
nowhere. A moment later Mr. Clark and Mr. Lock were exhaustedly
mopping their foreheads, and their burden, unceremoniously
dumped into a chair, was lolling back in his seat, too indisposed even
for protest at his treatment.
“Good gracious, whatever—” began Horace’s spouse, appearing in
vast surprise at the inner door.
Mr. Lock, perceiving a second female rising from a chair in the back
parlour, began to speak loudly and rapidly.
“We’ve just found this chap lying ’elpless at the corner of the road,”
he stated. “We brought ’im ’ere because ’e said ’e wanted to find a
Mrs. Jackson, sir, and we thought that p’r’aps you might know the
good lady. Though whether she’d care to admit to knowing him, I
shouldn’t like to say, her being a most respectable lady, by all
accounts.”
“’E must ’ave been drinking the ’ole of the day!” observed Mr. Clark,
in tones of righteous contempt. “I see ’im myself go into the ‘Jolly
Sailors,’ and the ‘Blue Lion,’ and the ‘Cutlass and Cannon’.”
“I see ’im myself this morning,” said Horace. “I see him come out of
the station, and I thought ’e looked a pretty queer fish. ’E come
straight out of the station and went into the ‘Railway Inn.’”
“I see ’im leave the ‘Flag and Pennant’ at dinner-time,” contributed
Mr. Lock. “’E left there to go to the ‘Royal George’.”
“Brandy, too!” intoned Mr. Clark, sepulchrally. “You just bend down
and sniff. If you can’t smell brandy, I’ll—”
Mr. Briblett, raising his head with extreme difficulty, partly opened his
eyes.
“Where am I?” he demanded, weakly. “I’m—I’m not at all well! I feel
ill—very ill!”
“So I should think!” concurred Mr. Lock. “And the language he was
using!”
“Said ’e’d backed three winners out of five yesterday, and didn’t care
if it snowed pink!” supplied Mr. Clark.
“Wanted us to ’ave a game of ’apenny nap with ’im on the steps of
the Town Hall,” added Mr. Lock.
“Said ’e’d come down to see about a ’air-dressing business, but it
could go to—but ’e wasn’t going to trouble!” stated Mr. Clark.
As one existing on a plane of complete isolation, the stricken Mr.
Briblett rose unsteadily to his feet. Clutching at the back of his chair,
he swayed delicately a while, and then sat down again.
“I—I’d like to go to sleep,” he announced. “I want to go to sleep! I
want to lie down! Oh, I feel so queer! That boat, drifting out to sea
—”
“Boat—sea!” cried Mr. Clark, readily. “There you are! Delirious, and
no wonder! Raving—raving! What a ’orrible hexample for all right-
minded men!”
There was a little wait. Then Mrs. Jackson, coming out of a sort of
trance, pushed past her hostess and stepped through the doorway of
the back parlour. For three long seconds she stared at Mr. Briblett,
and then, drawing a deep breath, she shrilly began to take the
predominant part in the conversation. . . .
Five minutes later Mr. Dobb, Mr. Clark, and Mr. Lock were standing
some streets away, dazedly fanning their brows.
“’Ow the dooce was I to know?” whispered Mr. Dobb, brokenly. “’Ow
the dooce was I to know the chap would be so punctual as to be too
early for the hexpress and come straight along to see Mrs. Jackson
at ’er ’ome?”
His hearers shook their heads in confession of inability to answer the
question.
“And ’ow the dooce was I to know,” continued Mr. Dobb, bitterly, “that
she’d asked this other chap to come down and ’elp ’er with ’er
business affairs, now ’e’d got back to England after fifteen years in
the Colonies, and never been to Shore’aven before to see ’er? ’Ow
the dooce was I to know? . . . Why, I didn’t even know she’d got a
brother!”
EPISODE IV
BLACK CATS ARE ALWAYS LUCKY
It had been a day thickly veined and marbled with emotions for the
little group of men who, aforetime, had in some measure controlled
the sea-going vagaries of that decrepit old barque, the “Jane
Gladys.” For, that day, the “Jane Gladys” had ceased to be a ship
dowered with an imposing collection of virtues perceptible only to the
auctioneer, and had become but so much old wood and rusting iron
to be exploited by the speculative marine-store dealer who hazarded
the highest price for her unlovely bulk.
This distressful climax in the nautical career of the “Jane Gladys”
was not allowed to go unwitnessed by those who had so long lived
and thrived amid the sinister shadows of her ill-repute as a barque
that was the natural home of venal duplicities. The erstwhile crew of
the “Jane Gladys,” those established confederates in mercenary plot
and counterplot, had rallied to watch the transfer of their stronghold
into alien and unsympathetic ownership, and, in the untroubled
throng about the auctioneer, they stood as figures thrust apart from
their fellow-men by the stern arm of Tragedy.
Captain Peter Dutt was there, his countenance a very show-case of
mournful reminiscence as he gazed upon his late command,
although he had retired ashore on a comfortable pension, and had
already taken to bragging about his extraordinary prowess as an
amateur grower of vegetables. That venerable and corpulent
amphibian, Mr. Samuel Clark, was there, too, having contrived to
evade for a while his present duties as ferryman across Shorehaven
Harbour in order to attend this dismal chapter in the history of the
vessel upon which he had served for so many years. And Mr.
Horace Dobb, who formerly graced the cook’s galley of the doomed
ship, was also in attendance in the great glory of garb which was
explained and justified by the fact that he had married a widow and a
snug second-hand business at one fortunate sweep.
But, as may be inferred, the regrets of Captain Dutt, of Mr. Clark, and
of Mr. Dobb were almost entirely retrospective, for their daily bread
was assured. The future was firm ground for their feet to tread, and
their woeful deportment had therefore merely a sentimental value.
Far more earnest and practical was the grief at the passing of the
“Jane Gladys” of the two remaining members of her old crew, Mr.
Peter Lock and Mr. Joseph Tridge.
Despite the assiduity with which these two gentlemen had of late
pointed out to the great god Luck ways by which he might help them,
that fickle deity had proved himself singularly unresponsive. And this
meant that neither Mr. Lock nor Mr. Tridge had any attractive
prospects to solace them for the loss of their employment on the
“Jane Gladys.”
By personal inquiry they had discovered that no master mariner was
prepared to risk the morale of his crew by importing into the fo’c’sle
anyone who had been even remotely connected with the “Jane
Gladys,” nor was a task ashore obtainable when once they had
mentioned the only references they could give.
True, Mr. Dobb had promised them his favour, but, so far, nothing
had come of it save the abortive attempt to procure employment for
Mr. Tridge as a hairdresser. Not that there was any question as to
Mr. Dobb’s sincerity of purpose, for, in projecting philanthropies for
his two unfortunate shipmates, he was largely considering his own
interests. “Strictly Business!” was the self-chosen motto that
controlled Mr. Dobb’s energies in every direction, and always there
was present in his mind the idea that profitable disposal of stock
from the shop in Fore Street might skilfully be accelerated by the
placing of his old accomplices of the “Jane Gladys” in strategic
situations about the town.
But, apart from securing Mr. Samuel Clark his present job, Mr.
Dobb’s efforts had hitherto been negligible in result, and now, of
those who mourned the end of the “Jane Gladys,” none mourned her
with more genuine feeling or with a greater sense of personal
bereavement than Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge, for others were only
mourning for memories, while they were mourning a lost home.
Gradually, however, as the day had worn on, they had struggled with
and overcome their melancholy, mounting, indeed in the end to a
flippant hilarity which fitted but incongruously with the gravity of their
prospects.
But this was not till the day was nearing its close. The early
afternoon had been a space of sighs and doleful head-shakings, for,
at the close of the sale, Captain Dutt had led his old subordinates
into the “Turk’s Head,” and here they had all spoken so wistfully and
reverently about the “Jane Gladys” that the landlady had wondered
how one of them could have come back wearing a green and pink tie
from a funeral.
Mr. Horace Dobb, not averse from exhibiting the opulence of his new
sphere in life to his former skipper, competed with that worthy for the
honour of being prime host to the party. It was a challenge which
Captain Dutt’s pride forbade him to refuse, and so round after round
of refreshment was served, till by degrees a brisker mood
descended upon the company.
It was not till past tea-time that the party had begun to break up. Mr.
Clark was the first to leave, having suddenly remembered that he
had faithfully promised to return to the ferry at one o’clock sharp.
And next Mr. Dobb went, pleading the calls of business, and
purchasing a cigar at the bar as he left, with excellent effect. For
Captain Dutt, after silently and disapprovingly considering such an
action on an ex-cook’s part, at last stigmatized it as a kind of
Socialism, and bought Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge a cigar apiece to re-
establish his prestige.
Soon after, Captain Dutt reluctantly announced that he, too, must
now depart, and Messrs. Tridge and Lock accompanied him to the
nearest draper’s shop, where he sagely selected a bonnet to be
presented to Mrs. Dutt the moment he got home. And when the
skipper, already holding the hat-box before him in a propitiatory
manner, had passed from their sight round a corner, Mr. Tridge and
Mr. Lock looked hard and remindedly at each other, and then made
search in their pockets.
As a result, the one party produced a shilling and five pennies, and
the other party disclosed a florin and a halfpenny; frank and
unabashed confession admitted these coins to be “change” which
the skipper had forgotten to pick up amid the mental distractions of
the afternoon.
Whereupon, congratulating themselves and each other on this
presence of mind in face of opportunity, Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge had
retired to the tap-room of the “Royal William,” and had there
abundantly developed their policy of drowning dull care.
By now the night was well advanced, and a fevered, reckless
brilliance was illuminating Mr. Lock’s personality, lighting up all those
manifold polite accomplishments of which he was a master. Thus,
he had entertained the company with a series of imitations of bird-
calls, and performed clever feats of legerdemain with corks and
pennies and hats.
Mr. Tridge was in complete eclipse. He had tried hard to be not
ungenial, but his temperament was different from Mr. Lock’s, and
every minute of revelry only found him more and more subdued and
morose. He had struggled against this psychological handicap, even
to the extent of exhibiting to the company four or five styles of
dancing with which he was familiar, but so morose and forbidding
was his countenance as he jigged and gyrated that none dared claim
his attention by offering applause, so that when he sat down again it
was amid complete and discouraging silence.
Mr. Lock, however, shone still more effulgently as the evening
progressed. Knotting his handkerchief into semblance of a doll, he
affected that it was a wife and that he was its husband, and built up
on these premises a highly diverting ventriloquial monologue.
And, after that, he successfully introduced some farmyard mimicry,
and then got well away with card tricks. Appreciative, and even
enthusiastic, were Mr. Lock’s audience, and none was more
enthusiastic or appreciative than the plump, fresh-faced little landlord
of the “Royal William.” Not once, nor twice, but thrice, did he pay
tribute to Mr. Lock’s powers in the medium most gratifying to that
artist, and his flow of hospitality ceased only when a big and stern-
visaged lady came presently and stood behind the bar at his side.
And, thereafter, the licensee of the “Royal William” took, as it were,
but a furtive and subsidiary interest in Mr. Lock’s entertainment;
while the lady eyed the performance with a cold hostility which was
inimical to true art.
And whether it was that Mr. Lock grew a little flustered under her
malign regard, or whether it was that he sought to sting the landlord
into revolt against domestic oppression, the fact remains that he
began to intersperse his card tricks with humorous, but inflammatory,
remarks bearing on the subject of domineering wives and too
submissive husbands.
It is possible that the landlord of the “Royal William” derived
amusement from these sallies. Certainly his eyes gleamed at each
thrust, and more than once he turned away to conceal a grin, but he
was too craven to exhibit open hilarity at Mr. Lock’s satires. The
landlady, however, did not hesitate to betray her feelings in the
matter, and thus it was that, at the tail of an amusing anecdote of
domestic tyranny, Mr. Lock found himself confronted with a stern and
acidulated request to sit down and keep quiet unless he wished to
find himself in trouble.
Mr. Lock, a little nonplussed, glanced at the landlord to enlist his
support. The landlord’s gaze was apologetic but unhelpful. Mr. Lock
looked around among his admirers, but their demeanour had
become absent and constrained. Mr. Lock turned and regarded Mr.
Tridge; Mr. Tridge was wrapped in his own sable meditations.
Pettishly, Mr. Lock flung down the pack of cards and sulked in a
corner.
The landlady, having thus suppressed unwelcome propaganda,
indulged in a tight-lipped smile of triumph, and began a rinsing of
glasses. The hush deepened in the room, developing an
atmosphere which brought Mr. Lock back to remembrance of his
own insecure position in the world, and this was rendered still more
discomforting by what followed. For an amiable gentleman in a
check coat, after twice clearing his throat, sought to re-establish light
conversation, and asked the landlord whether there was yet any
news of Ted.
“I had a letter from him,” answered the landlord, coming out of a sort
of thoughtful trance.
“Thanking you for all the kindnesses you’ve showed him, I lay,”
hazarded the checkered gentleman.
“No,” returned the landlord, slowly. “’E only asked me to send on
after him a pair of boots he’d left behind for mendin’.”
“Fancy bothering about boots!” marvelled the other. “If my uncle
died and left me a greengrocery shop—”
“And a nice little business, too, by all accounts,” struck in an
individual in a mackintosh.
“Ay, by his accounts,” agreed the landlord. “If half he said was true,
he won’t have to do any more billiard-marking and odd-jobbing.”
“Not while the money lasts, at any rate,” said the man in the
mackintosh. “Have you got anyone to take his place yet?”
The landlord, shaking his head, replied that he had not yet found a
successor to Ted. Billiard-markers, he added, were scarce; people
who desired employment as such were, as a rule, of one or two
unsatisfactory classes, knowing either too little or too much.
Mr. Lock, assimilating this talk, lifted his eyes and peered as it were
through the mists of his troubles. Here, obviously, was a vacancy
going, and one which he was well qualified to fill, for his knowledge
of the billiard table was neither elementary nor academic. A post as
a marker and odd-job man at the “Royal William” appealed with
equal force to his temperament and his talents. He could conceive
of no form of employment more compatible with his desires. He
almost groaned with mortification at the thought that he had allowed
a faux pas to ruin his chances of so delectable a situation.
None the less, he determined to make sure that his opportunity was
indeed irrevocably lost, and, to that end, when the landlady had
temporarily quitted the apartment, he sidled up to the host of the
“Royal William,” and put a blunt inquiry to him.
“No chance whatever!” answered that worthy, regretfully shaking his
head.
“You’ll find me just the sort of chap you want,” pleaded Mr. Lock.
“I’ve no doubt of it,” accepted the landlord. “If it was only me what
had the say, you could start to-morrow. I don’t mind admitting
straight to your face that I’ve took to you. You’ve got a civil, well-
bred, amoosin’ way with you. You’d get on like a house afire with the
gents in the billiard-room. But—”
He shook his head again, sighed, and left the ellipsis to carry its own
implication.
“The missis, eh?” said Mr. Lock, sadly.
“The missis,” agreed the landlord.
“I suppose it ’ud be no good my trying to—”
“It ’ud be no good your trying anything!” interrupted the landlord, with
conviction. “You can bet she’s got her knife into you, and you can
bet nothing ’ud please her more than to twist it round like a
corkscrew.”
“Well, if I had a job here,” contended Mr. Lock, “she’d have a lot
more chances to twist it.”
“Look here, I’d give you the job if I dared, but I dare not, and that’s
flat and honest,” said the landlord, earnestly. “I daren’t! See?

Ebook What Goes Without Saying Navigating Political Discussion in America Taylor N Carlson Settle Jaime E Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Ebook What Goes Without Saying Navigating Political Discussion in America Taylor N Carlson Settle Jaime E Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ebook What Goes Without Saying Navigating Political Discussion in America Taylor N Carlson Settle Jaime E Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What Goes Without Saying Navigating

Political Discussion in America Taylor

Frenemies How Social Media Polarizes America Jaime E.

Democracy on the Edge A Discussion of Political Issues

Misinformation Nation Foreign News and the Politics of

A Century of Wealth in America Wolff Edward N

Cultural Management and Policy in Latin America 1st

Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in

Retaking America Crushing Political Correctness Nick

Health Psychology 11th Edition Shelley E. Taylor

Why are political conversations uncomfortable for so many people?

 .  is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York,  10006, USA

477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  3207, Australia

314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,

103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

© Taylor N. Carlson and Jaime E. Settle 2022

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 978-1-108-83186-4 Hardback

Additional resources for this publication at www.cambridge.org/9781108831864

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Why are political conversations uncomfortable for so many people?

 .  is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York,  10006, USA

477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  3207, Australia

314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,

103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

© Taylor N. Carlson and Jaime E. Settle 2022

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 978-1-108-83186-4 Hardback

Additional resources for this publication at www.cambridge.org/9781108831864

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Why are political conversations uncomfortable for so many people?

 .  is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press

One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York,  10006, USA

477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  3207, Australia

314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,

103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

© Taylor N. Carlson and Jaime E. Settle 2022

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception