What are the mechanisms underlying the generation and sustaining of polarization and intergroup conflict? What kinds of interventions might be effective in mitigating polarization and promoting intergroup flourishing?

These questions have been the focus of decades of research, but most of that work has centered on adults. As a result, more is known about how to address polarization after it has taken hold than how it arises or might be prevented. With the exception of research in high-conflict contexts such as Northern Ireland or the Middle East, most studies have involved Western, educated populations, leaving it unclear whether the research conclusions reveal fundamental truths about how beliefs become polarized or whether — as has been shown for other topics — they are culture-bound and of limited use for designing interventions in more diverse settings.

To address these knowledge gaps, a project led by Kathleen Corriveau (Boston University), Rebekah Richert (University of California Riverside), and Jocelyn Dautel (Queen's University Belfast) will leverage 25+ researchers from the Developing Belief Network, across 19 countries, to study the development of polarization in children aged 8–12 across topics including religion, science, social justice, and morality.

At these ages, early roots of polarization may include the stability or changeability of a child’s own beliefs, a child’s openness and willingness to change their beliefs, and a child’s attitudes toward others with conflicting beliefs. These elements of polarization are subject to a variety of developmental influences, both individual (e.g., cognitive development, intellectual humility) and contextual (e.g., educational practices, social and cultural environment).  

This cross-cultural, 36-month longitudinal study of children and their caregivers will allow universal developmental factors in the development of polarization to be disentangled from cultural factors while also exploring the role of specific content domains in children’s willingness to revise their beliefs and conceptions of those whose beliefs differ from the child’s.