Examining the Frequency and Characteristics of Politically Diverse Friendships

The research explored the frequency of politically diverse friendships—that is, those characterized by dissimilar political attitudes—and their association with political outgroup attitudes and friendship quality. In two studies, 971 pairs of adult friends in the United States reported their political attitudes and affiliation, discussion of controversial political issues, comfort with political disagreement (CPD), friendship quality and attitudes toward political groups. Friendships between Democrats and Republicans were rare and the degree of political attitude dissimilarity within pairs was generally low. Multilevel models estimated the association that CPD and political attitude dissimilarity within pairs each have with political outgroup attitudes and friendship quality. Political attitude dissimilarity was associated with lower prejudice toward political outgroups, but also lower friendship quality. CPD was weakly associated with higher friendship quality.