More striking was that when the illusion faded, political polarisation also started to fade. People who would have instinctively described their political opponents as wicked, and who would have gone to the barricades to defend their own ideas, tended to be less strident when forced to admit to themselves that they didn’t fully understand what it was they were so passionate about in the first place. The experiment influenced actions as well as words: researchers found that people became less likely to give money to lobby groups or other organisations which supported the positions they had once
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