Political outcomes would be relatively simple to predict and understand if only people were well-informed, entirely rational, and perfectly self-interested. Alas, real human beings are messy, emotional, imperfect creatures, so a successful theory of politics has to account for these features. One phenomenon that has grown in recent years is an alignment of cultural differences with political ones, so that polarization becomes more entrenched and even violent. I talk with political scientist Lilliana Mason about how this has come to pass, and how democracy can deal with it.Blog post with transcript: <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/17/305-lilliana-mason-on-polarization-and-political-psychology/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/02/17/305-lilliana-mason-on-polarization-and-political-psychology/</a>Support Mindscape on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Patreon</a>.Lilliana Hall Mason received her Ph.D. in political psychology from Stony Brook University. She is currently an SNF Agora Institute Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Uncivil-Agreement-Politics-Became-Identity/dp/022652454X/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity</a>&nbsp;and co-author (with Nathan Kalmoe) of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Radical-American-Partisanship-Hostility-Consequences-ebook/dp/B09RVFRDVM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy</a>.<ul><li><a href="https://www.lillianamason.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web Site</a></li><li><a href="https://snfagora.jhu.edu/person/lilliana-mason/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hopkins web page</a></li><li><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hAKarYwAAAAJ&hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publications</a></li><li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/lilymasonphd.bsky.social" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bluesky</a></li></ul>

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305 | Lilliana Mason on Polarization and Political Psychology

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