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When chatting with friends these days, there's a good chance Americans are talking about politics, and they're more likely to be talking with people they agree with politically instead of crossing lines of belief.

"Likes talk to likes" has always been true, says Penn political scientist Diana Mutz, but what's changed is the sheer amount of like-minded conversation. By increasing the salience of politics, Mutz says, political leaders, political elites, and the media have increased the volume of political discourse.

Using a pair of pre-election surveys conducted 24 years apart—1996 and 2020—Mutz found that Americans are not avoiding political conversations across party lines any more than they were 25 years ago. Instead, they are talking with more people more frequently about politics, primarily those people they agree with politically. Mutz her findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The upshot is that the number of those conversations across lines of political difference hasn't decreased, contrary to what many had suspected. Rather, Americans' discussions with those who believe similarly has increased dramatically more than cross-cutting conversations have. "As politics has become more salient in our day-to-day lives, our political discussion networks have increased in size, leading to more political discussion," Mutz says.

"The amount of like-minded conversation that we are having is swamping that already small amount of cross-cutting connection," Mutz says. "What that means is that we're even more sure of our own views and intolerant of others' views."

Mutz, the Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication and director of Penn's Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics, says that environments where we are surrounded by people who agree with us politically are actually the best settings for increasing participation in politics, such as voting and working on campaigns.

"It's very reassuring to be surrounded by like-minded others, and you feel more free to promote the views that you hold," she says. "It is very awkward to be politically active if you're surrounded by people who don't agree with you. We are all first and foremost social beings, and we don't like to lose friends or offend other people."

Mutz reports that while political participation has increased since 1996, political tolerance over the same period has decreased. "Americans are 9% less willing to uphold the civil liberties of disliked political groups than they were in 1996," she writes. Mutz concludes that American leaders and political elites have in the past helped to uphold the political norms that encourage tolerance.

While people today are no more or less likely to encounter cross-cutting political conversations, Mutz says, "People can't really escape politics. Even if you don't want to be making political statements, people will interpret your coffee brand or your car as doing so. Politics overwhelms our everyday lives now in a way that most Americans dislike."

Mutz finds that most political discussions that Americans report engaging in are happening offline, not in digital communities or on social media. "One likes to watch other people argue with one another online, but very few actively participate," she says. "Watching others engage is kind of a spectator sport on social media."

Mutz says there has been a surge in initiatives to promote cross-cutting discussion. These "projects designed to get people to talk to one another across lines of political difference" assume such discussion has declined, while it has not, she says.