In many contemporary democracies, political polarization increasingly involves deep-seated intolerance of opposing partisans. The decades-old contact hypothesis suggests that cross-partisan interactions might reduce intolerance if individuals interact with equal social status. Here we test this idea by implementing collaborative contact between 1,227 pairs of citizens (2,454 individuals) with opposing partisan sympathies in Mexico, using the online medium to credibly randomize participants’ relative social status within the interaction. Interacting under both equal and unequal status enhanced tolerant behaviour immediately after contact; however, 3 weeks later, only the salutary effects of equal contact endured. These results demonstrate that a simple, scalable intervention that puts people on equal footing can reduce partisan polarization and make online contact into a prosocial force.

在许多当代民主国家，政治两极分化越来越多地涉及对立党派根深蒂固的不容忍。几十年前的接触假说表明，如果个人以平等的社会地位互动，跨党派互动可能会减少不宽容。在这里，我们通过在墨西哥 1,227 对同情党派的公民（2,454 人）之间实施协作联系来测试这一想法，使用在线媒体在互动中可靠地随机分配参与者的相对社会地位。在平等和不平等状态下互动增强了接触后的容忍行为;然而，3 周后，只有平等接触的有益影响持续存在。这些结果表明，一种简单、可扩展的干预措施，让人们处于平等的地位，可以减少党派两极分化，并使在线联系成为一股亲社会力量。