2025 Theses Doctoral

“It’s alright not to be all right” – Grace as a catalyst for everyday political talk

Phan, Lan H.

The escalation of political polarization in the U.S. has permeated all aspects of life, where engaging in casual political, social, and moral discussions can risk jeopardizing professional careers and personal relationships. Although popular psychology has brought attention to grace as a solution to encourage constructive, deliberate conversations with others for a healthy democracy, its role in everyday political talk has never been empirically studied. Furthermore, definitions and existing psychometric measurements have largely neglected human grace as distinct from religious grace.

This research agenda addresses this gap by developing and validating new measures of human grace in political talk and investigating its impact on everyday political discourse. First, a pilot study was conducted consisting of an open-ended survey (𝑁 = 100) to form a grounded definition of human grace. Results of this study identified three central theoretical dimensions: Empathy & Perspective-Taking, Forgiveness & Acceptance, and Allowing for Growth & Change. From the pilot study’s findings, Study 1 sought feedback from subject matter experts (𝑁 = 7) to develop and assess the content validity of three Human Understanding of Grace (HUG) to Self, to Others, and Perceived from Others measures. Study 2 (𝑁 = 401) and Study 3 (𝑁 = 402) then utilized a longitudinal design to empirically validate these HUG scales in political discussions.

The findings exhibited good content, convergent, discriminant, predictive, and incremental validity for the effects of grace in everyday political talk within one’s social circles. Finally, Study 4 used a 2 (target high/ low grace) x 2 (political match/ mismatch) experimental design (𝑁 = 239) to assess whether individuals were significantly more willing to communicate about politics with strangers who were perceived to offer more grace, regardless of whether their political affiliations were matched or opposed. The findings across these five studies contribute to the theoretical understanding of human grace and are the first to empirically demonstrate its potential to foster constructive, deliberate political dialogue.