If you look at my profile you can see that I am a retired physics professor. But I am also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). As an AAAS member I also get a subscription to their very highly regarded scientific journal “Science”. As I was catching up on a few back editions of “Science” this morning, I came upon a very interesting Political Science research report with the above quoted title in the 1 June 2018, Vol 390, Issue 6392 issue of “Science” on pages 1020-1024, submitted by researchers M. Keith Chen (Anderson School of Management, UCLA) and Ryne Rohla (School of Economic Science, Washington State University).
Now this research report (and “Science” magazine in general) is only available in full to members of AAAS or subscribers to “Science”. The Abstract is publicly available, but the full article is not. So I will quote the Abstract below and only the beginning and concluding paragraphs of the article to conform to fair use.
But in general this research report looked at the differences between the length of Thanksgiving dinners in 2016 in two groups: one where a subject was having Thanksgiving dinner in a precinct that voted oppositely to the resident precinct of the subject (opposing-party dinners), and the other where a subject was having Thanksgiving dinner is a precinct that the voted the same as the subject’s resident precinct (same-party dinners).
Perhaps unsurprisingly the researchers found that opposing-party dinners were a statistically 30-50 minutes shorter than same-party dinners. The researchers also conducted the same test for Thanksgiving dinners in 2015 and found no such opposing-party/same-party effect in Thanksgiving dinner length for that year. The researchers also found this effect was asymmetric: Republican-precinct opposing-dinner subjects had dinners that were more minutes shorter than Democratic-precinct opposing-dinner subjects. The researchers also found that opposing-party dinners in precincts having more political advertising in their local media market also had shorter Thanksgiving dinners than in precincts having less political advertising. So on to quotes from the research report itself:
Abstract
Research on growing American political polarization and antipathy primarily studies public institutions and political processes, ignoring private effects, including strained family ties. Using anonymized smartphone-location data and precinct-level voting, we show that Thanksgiving dinners attended by residents from opposing-party precincts were 30 to 50 minutes shorter than same-party dinners. This decline from a mean of 257 minutes survives extensive spatial and demographic controls. Reductions in the duration of Thanksgiving dinner in 2016 tripled for travelers from media markets with heavy political advertising—an effect not observed in 2015—implying a relationship to election-related behavior. Effects appear asymmetric: Although fewer Democratic-precinct residents traveled in 2016 than in 2015, Republican-precinct residents shortened their Thanksgiving dinners by more minutes in response to political differences. Nationwide, 34 million hours of cross-partisan Thanksgiving dinner discourse were lost in 2016 owing to partisan effects.
Now here are the first two paragraphs of the research report describing this interesting (and perhaps not surprising, but now scientifically verified) Thanksgiving dinner effect:
American political partisanship has risen sharply over the past 25 years. More than 55% of Democrats and Republicans described “very unfavorable” feelings toward the opposing party in 2016, up from 17 to 21% in the mid-1990s: growing numbers of Independents express disfavor with both parties, and rising party defections increase polarization (1). Spatial partisan sorting produces increasingly homogeneous electoral “bubbles” at both state and local levels (2), and political minorities within these bubbles show reticence to participate in or reveal their party affiliation (3).
Animosity toward political rivals is not limited to the ballot box; implicit partisan biases manifest in discriminatory decisions even more frequently than racial or gender biases (4). Parents express intolerance of their children dating and marrying across partisan lines (5), and observed data and marital choices segregate more strongly on politics than on physical attributes or personality characteristics (6). Political polarization affects decisions, such as where to work and shop, at higher rates than race, ethnicity, or religion (7).
And now for the concluding summary paragraph:
Our findings have several implications, both for the literature and for campaign policy. After the 2016 election, anecdotal media reports and online social-media behavior (18) demonstrated an avoidance of personal confrontations over political issues among Democratic voters, findings our study corroborates. RPRs [Republican-precinct residents], however, were more sensitive to partisan differences at Thanksgiving dinners, an effect that supports findings of greater partisan-selective exposure among Republicans in news-media consumption (19). Our results suggest that partisan polarization extends in quantitatively meaningful ways to close family settings and that political advertising and related campaign efforts can exacerbate these fissures. As abbreviated Thanksgiving gatherings tend to accumulate in regions with greater campaign activity, policies designed to shorten campaigns may reduce the private costs of political polarization.
Happy Thanksgiving 2018! I hope any political differences at your Thanksgiving dinner this year doesn’t shorten it unduly, or cause any more indigestion than normal. And keep the TV turned off during dinner. You can watch the football games later.