Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

Summer 7-31-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

August 2026

Department

Psychology

College Granting Degree

Charles E. Schmidt College of Science

Department Granting Degree

Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Geoffrey Wetherell

Abstract

Five-hundred twenty-one participants completed an online study to assess the effects of exposure to highly polarized news sources on the tone of intraparty and crosscutting political discussions. Participants watched five randomly selected news clips from Fox News or MSNBC and then completed a discussion task with an AI chatbot. News clips were matched by tone and topic across news sources and each participant watched the same number of positive, negative, and neutral news clips. Participants were randomly assigned to engage with one of two chatbots: the liberal chatbot or the conservative chatbot. Semantic analysis was conducted via LIWC-22 to produces indices of positive and negative tone for discussion responses. Measures of perceived tone captured participants’ own evaluation of the discussion tone. Analyses showed that participants used a higher percentage of LIWC negative tone words after watching MSNBC than after watching Fox News. Participants paired with an AI chat partner of the same political party used a higher percentage of positive tone words and perceived the discussion as more positive than participants paired with a partner of the opposing political party. Participants who interacted with the conservative bot used a greater percentage of LIWC negative tone words and perceived the discussion as more negative compared to participants who interacted with the liberal bot. Mediation analyses revealed that psychological reactance and perspective-taking do not mediate the effect of the interaction between news source and discussion partner’s political affiliation on the tone of online political discussions. These findings illuminate the effects of polarized news exposure on cross-party interactions and underscore the need to examine potential sources of polarization and depolarization in the social environment.

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