The language has escalated: political parties trash talk each other—blaming rival parties for policy failures or even for causing incidents with national implications. The research was led by the Polarization Research Lab, a nonpartisan team of political scientists from Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania. Attribution Associate Professor of Government Sean WestwoodThe study shows that such superficial interventions are largely ineffective. On average, treatments improved a person’s feelings towards the other political party by a mere 5.3%. In essence, flooding the airwaves with public service announcements to counter political hatred is not an effective strategy.