When Politics Gets Personal: Students’ Conversational Strategies as Everyday Identity Work

TL;DR

This study examines how university students navigate politically charged conversations by managing their identities to avoid conflict.

Contribution

The paper introduces four conversational strategies as identity management tools in politically polarized discussions.

Findings

Students use disengagement, negotiation, context adaptation, and information processing to manage political conversations.

These strategies aim to reduce social and cognitive risks associated with political disagreement.

While helpful in avoiding conflict, these strategies may hinder deeper cross-ideological engagement.

Abstract

Political polarization in the United States has made conversations across ideological divides increasingly difficult to navigate. This study explores how students at a regional university in the southern U.S. experience and manage these challenges. Based on in-depth interviews with 30 students from diverse social and political backgrounds, we identify four key conversational strategies: disengagement, negotiation, context adaptation, and information processing. Rather than viewing these as surface-level techniques, we argue they represent deeper identity management processes aimed at reducing the social and cognitive risks of political disagreement. Drawing on Self-Categorization Theory and Identity Control Theory, we show how these strategies reflect efforts to maintain identity coherence and manage relational stakes when political identity becomes salient. Our findings suggest that while these strategies may help students avoid conflict in the moment, they may also limit deeper engagement across divides. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for dialog practice, highlighting the importance of fostering tolerance for identity discomfort and helping students rediscover the common bonds that unite them across political differences.

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