Destructive Communication

Does communication always promote socially efficient behavior? We challenge this common proposition by showing that communication becomes destructive in polarized contexts. In an online experiment, we investigate what happens when participants who fundamentally disagree communicate. We exogenously vary the degree of polarization and the participants’ ability to communicate. When participants are sufficiently polarized, communication no longer improves trust and significantly reduces trustworthiness. Using natural language processing and supervised machine learning, we document that a substantial fraction of participants focus their communication on being polarized, leading to a destructive effect on both trust and trustworthiness. Our findings challenge the universality of contact theory, highlighting that communication may backfire in settings where parties hold opposing views.