Civity Strengthens Democracy

The Strengthening Democracy Challenge (SDC) mega-study – the largest social science experiment of its kind – measured several factors related to partisanship and political distrust. The results show that the simple act of engaging in the practice of civity – of seeing humanity in an other – reduces partisan polarization.

The study found that Civity’s eight-minute digital intervention – Civity Storytelling: Expanding the Pool of People Who Matter – was:

➤ #1 at increasing social trust;
➤ #2 in decreasing social distance – when people avoid being near someone of the other party;
➤ at decreasing opposition to bipartisanship; and
➤ One of the top interventions for reducing partisan animosity (#4).

Civity Storytelling also:

➤ Reduced support for un-democratic practices;
➤ Was #4 in decreasing support for biased evaluation of political facts; and
➤ Decreased cold feelings towards out-partisans – people from other political parties.