Experiment 4: Among Republicans, the historicist thinking intervention reduces disapproval, anger, contempt, and disgust toward the outparty, but not through perceived control of self-formation.

Coefficients are standardized. *p p p < .001.</p

Experiment 1: Among Democrats, the historicist thinking intervention lowers perceived control of self-formation, thereby reducing partisan animosity.

Coefficients are standardized. *p p p < .001.</p

Experiment 3: Impact of the historicist thinking intervention on moral emotional responses.

Experiment 3: Impact of the historicist thinking intervention on moral emotional responses.</p

Supplemental materials.

Partisan animosity has been on the rise in America. Partisan animosity involves blame, wherein political partisans blame outparty members for their beliefs and actions. Here, we examine whether a historicist thinking intervention—drawn from research on blame mitigation—can reduce partisan animosity. The intervention consisted of three components: (1) a narrative about the idiosyncratic development of one political opponent paired with (2) a message about how unique life experiences shape everyone’s political beliefs and (3) a suggestion that outparty members can be changed by future formative experiences. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the intervention reduced cold feelings—measured via Feeling Thermometer—towards the outparty for both Democrats and Republicans. Experiments 3 and 4 focused on more specific emotional changes. Experiment 3 showed that, for Democrats, the intervention increased compassion. Experiment 4 showed that, for Republicans, the intervention reduced disgust, disapproval, anger, and contempt, but had no impact on compassion. For Democrats, but not for Republicans, reductions in animosity were mediated by reduced perceptions of control of self-formation, the mediator identified in prior work on historicist thinking and blame mitigation.</div

Experiment 4: Impact of the historicist thinking intervention on moral emotional responses.

Experiment 4: Impact of the historicist thinking intervention on moral emotional responses.</p

Experiment 2: Among Republicans, the historicist thinking intervention reduces partisan animosity, but not through perceived control of self-formation.

Coefficients are standardized. *p p p < .001.</p

Experiment 3: Among Democrats, the historicist thinking intervention lowers perceived control of self-formation, thereby increasing compassion.

Coefficients are standardized. *p p p < .001.</p

Mediation via freedom of action and control of self-formation of the differences in moral outrage and compassion between the deed only and narrative-neutral conditions.

Coefficients are unstandardized. †p = .07; *p p p < .001.</p

Freedom of action and control of self-formation by condition.

Freedom of action and control of self-formation by condition.</p

Moral outrage as a function of condition: Simple effect comparisons.

Moral outrage as a function of condition: Simple effect comparisons.</p