Even ideal depolarization gains barely move downstream democratic attitudes.

Evidence

Across nearly all outcomes, including political trust, support for antidemocratic norms, and willingness to engage in political discourse, the expected changes are typically insignificant, negligible, or inconsistent between models. The sole exception is comfort with having outparty neighbors, which shows a meaningful, though modest, improvement (roughly one-tenth of a SD). Indeed, several items, including all those related to political violence, show increases in worrisome attitudes. For all other outcomes, the predicted changes are either statistically insignificant or substantively trivial, even under the most optimistic assumptions. — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard, 40

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the reading purpose: even optimistic assumptions about a 5.4-point warmth gain produce null or negligible downstream effects, and political-violence items even worsen — strong counter-evidence to dialogue-based de-coercion approaches alone.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 40
• XREF: connects to: Depolarization interventions produce only modest temporary effects on partisan animosity. — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 3; Depolarization interventions barely raise out-party warmth and show no gains from repetition. — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 59; Depolarization interventions produce small, decaying effects that fail to scale or shift downstream attitudes — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard: Evaluating…, 18 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Modest affective depolarization gains fail to shift downstream attitudes and behaviors. #corroborates (0.95) — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard, 41
• Depolarization interventions produce small, decaying effects that fail to scale or shift downstream attitudes #corroborates (0.93) — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard, 18
• Depolarization interventions barely raise out-party warmth and show no gains from repetition. #corroborates (0.92) — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard, 59
• Deliberation depolarizes only when structured by deliberative-democracy design features, otherwise discussion polarizes. #qualifies (0.80) — Didier Caluwaerts et al., Deliberation and Polarization, 18
• Partisan warmth shifts only matter if they alter downstream democratic behavior. #qualifies (0.78) — Derek E. Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood, Why Depolarization Is Hard, 36
• Depolarization requires deliberation framed by deliberative-democracy conditions. #complicates (0.75) — Didier Caluwaerts et al., Deliberation and Polarization, 136