People shift political expression to fit the room in small online group chats: Evidence from AI-simulated chat experiments

By Cleone Mitsui and Yuta Kawamura.

"Abstract

When political talk surfaces in everyday chats, it puts people in a bind. Do they speak their mind, or adjust their political opinion to fit the room they are in? This research examines whether, in such moments, individuals modify their expressed stance to align with the dominant tone of the group. Across two pre-registered studies (N = 360) using AI-simulated chat experiments, modelled after familiar messaging apps, participants interacted with AI agents presented as colleagues who consistently expressed either liberal or conservative positions. In Study 1, participants randomly assigned to liberal- or conservative-leaning chat groups shifted their expressed stance in the direction of the group, demonstrating that social context alone was sufficient to alter political expression. Study 2 replicated this effect while controlling for baseline ideology. After accounting for participants' self-reported political orientation, chat environment remained a significant predictor of how they expressed themselves. Together, the results reveal that in socially bounded digital settings, political expression may not simply be a window into personal belief, but function as a socially calibrated act. While expressions on large-scale social media platforms are often scrutinised by observers, in close-knit digital spaces, perceived consensus can emerge from within. These findings suggest that political talk in everyday settings may distort one's impression of surrounding opinions, not because disagreement is absent, but because it may remain unspoken." 

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See also Americans start caring more about deficits and the national debt when the party they oppose runs them up by John V. Kane of New York University and Ian G. Anson of The University of Maryland. Excerpt:

"In the past two decades, US budget deficits have skyrocketed, and the national debt is now over $22 trillion. But do Americans care about the size of deficits and the national debt? In new research, John V. Kane and Ian G. Anson find that people tend to care more about the deficits and debts when they are increased by presidents from the party that they oppose. Both Republicans and Democrats, they write, become less concerned about governments running deficits when their President is in charge."