The Causal Effects of Political Incivility in Social Media Discussions

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• Chris Bail (Duke University)
• Friday 14 November 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Online.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Yara Kyrychenko.

Professor Chris Bail (Duke University) will present his new paper on the causal effects of political incivility in social media discussions. 

Paper Abstract:

Political discussions serve many important functions in democratic societies, but increasingly occur on social media where incivility pervades. How does incivility in online political discussions impact conversational dynamics and outcomes? Using a novel research platform, we perform a preregistered experiment testing incivility’s causal effects in online political discussions. Participants use a mobile application to access a social media feed manipulated to vary in political incivility, with discussions driven by synthetic users powered by GPT -4. Participants experiencing the politically uncivil feed reported less comfort sharing views and were less likely to comment on political posts but paradoxically created more original posts. Their content also contained more hostile features such as profanity and insults. Furthermore, exposure to political incivility led to more negative views of out-party voters while in-party ratings remain unchanged. These findings highlight how uncivil political discussions on social media simultaneously discourage open expression while fueling hostility.

Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/yaq29_v1 

Speaker Bio:

Chris Bail is Professor of Sociology, Computer Science, Political Science, and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Society-Centered AI Initiative and co-directs the Polarization Lab. He studies how artificial intelligence shapes human behavior in a range of different settings—and social media platforms in particular.

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This talk is part of the Social Psychology Seminar Series (SPSS) series.

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