TY  - JOUR
AU  - Boxell, Levi
AU  - Conway, Jacob
AU  - Druckman, James N
AU  - Gentzkow, Matthew
TI  - Affective Polarization Did Not Increase During the Coronavirus Pandemic
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 28036
PY  - 2020
Y2  - October 2020
DO  - 10.3386/w28036
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w28036
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w28036.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Levi Boxell
Stanford University, Department of Economics
579 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
E-Mail: Lboxell@stanford.edu

Jacob Conway
Stanford University
Department of Economics
579 Jane Stanford Way 
Stanford, CA 94305
E-Mail: jcconway@stanford.edu

James N. Druckman
Northwestern University
601 University Place
Evanston, IL 60208
E-Mail: druckman@northwestern.edu

Matthew Gentzkow
Department of Economics
Stanford University
579 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650/723-3721
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: gentzkow@stanford.edu
AB  - We document trends in affective polarization during the coronavirus pandemic. In our main measure, affective polarization is relatively flat between July 2019 and February 2020, then falls significantly around the onset of the pandemic. Two other data sources show no evidence of an increase in polarization around the onset of the pandemic. Finally, we show in an experiment that priming respondents to think about the coronavirus pandemic significantly reduces affective polarization.
ER  -