The American electorate is characterized by political polarization, and especially by increasingly negative affective responses toward opposing party members. To what extent might this be attributed to exposure to information reinforcing individuals' partisan identity versus information representing the views of partisan opponents? And is this a uniquely American phenomenon? This study uses survey data collected immediately following recent national elections in two countries, the United States and Israel, to address these questions. Results across the two nations are generally consistent, and indicate that pro‐ and counterattitudinal information exposure has distinct influences on perceptions of and attitudes toward members of opposing parties, despite numerous cross‐cultural differences. We discuss implications in light of recent evidence about partisans' tendency to engage in selective exposure.

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Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model proposes that events in higher-order social ecosystems should influence human development through their impact on events in lower-order social ecosystems. This proposition was tested with respect to ecological violence and the development of children’s aggression via analyses of three waves of data (one wave yearly for three years) from three age cohorts (starting ages 8, 11, and 14) representing three populations in the Middle East: Palestinians (N = 600), Israeli Jews (N = 451), and Israeli Arabs (N = 450). Results supported a hypothesized model in which ethno-political violence increases community, family, and school violence and children’s aggression. Findings are discussed with respect to ecological and observational learning perspectives on the development of aggressive behavior.

Despite extensive literatures on the impact on children of exposure to violence in families, neighborhoods, and peer groups, there has been relatively little effort evaluating their cumulative impact. There also has been less attention to the effects of exposure to political conflict and violence. We collected data from a representative sample of 600 Palestinian youths (three age cohorts: 8, 11, and 14 years old) to evaluate the relation of exposure to political conflict and violence, and violence in the family, community, and school, to post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and aggressive behavior. Results highlight the additive effects of exposure to political conflict and violence, suggesting that interventionists should consider the full spectrum of sources of environmental risk for PTS symptoms and aggressive behavior.Broadly speaking, exposure to violence in the social environment is a serious and significant risk factor for the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents, with studies documenting relations between violence exposure and aggression, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and academic difficulties. However, despite longstanding

Do users tend to consume only like-minded political information online? We point to two problems with the existing knowledge about this debate. First, the measurement of media preferences by the typical means of surveys is less reliable than behavioral data. Second, most studies have analyzed only the extent of online exposure to like-minded content, not the users’ complete web-browsing repertoire. This study used both survey data and real-life browsing behavior (661,483 URLs from 15,976 websites visited by 402 participants) for the period 7 weeks prior to the 2013 Israeli national elections. The results indicate that (1) self-report measurements of ideological exposure are inflated, (2) exposure to online ideological content accounted for only 3% of total online browsing, (3) the participants’ media repertoires are very diverse with no evidence of echo chambers, and (4) in accordance with the selective exposure hypothesis, individuals on both sides are more exposed to like-minded content. The results are discussed in light of the selective exposure literature.