So, “Politics at the Dinner Table” is not just what many of us experience at our Thanksgiving meal. It’s the title of a new paper by economist Kirsten Cornelson. The subtitle gets at what many of us fear about sitting down with extended family and a plate of turkey: “Thanksgiving and Social Influences on Political Polarization.”
Cornelson built a sample of both Americans and Canadians who were interviewed multiple times across the weeks before and after their respective national Thanksgivings in 2019, 2021, and 2022. That is, she measures how respondents change in that week of Thanksgiving, compared to the weeks before and after. So, do people change?
First, as you might expect, people are more likely to have political discussions with family in the week of Thanksgiving. (Perhaps unwillingly!)
Second, this tends to lead to conversations with a more diverse group – as measured by the difference between people’s own political orientation and their perceived orientation of their conversation partners. This, too, makes sense. Nuclear families are often politically similar. But a gathering of extended family might bring together people with different politics. (Certainly in my family!)
Do these conversations have any effects? A little bit. The more left-wing a person’s family, the more a person shifts to the left in the week of Thanksgiving. And right-wing families appear to push people to the right. This is what Cornelson calls “assimilative social influence.”
This provides some evidence of convergence within the family – people move toward their family members – and also a greater likelihood of holding more centrist opinions. But the effects are pretty small and limited to that week of Thanksgiving.
There is also the question of how people perceive the political parties overall – and how much they rate the opposite party compared to their own party. This is known as “affective polarization.” Affective polarization does fall slightly in Thanksgiving week, but not by a statistically significant amount.
In sum, if you find yourself around the dinner table this week discussing politics with your crazy relatives, there might be a small and temporary effect – one that brings you slightly closer together politically. And, most importantly, you can dazzle your relatives by explaining assimilative social influence.
Happy Thanksgiving!
