Paulc Bauer News Today

Customers and bystanders form a line outside a Silicon Valley Bank branch location in Wellesley on March 13. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) The federal government may have rescued depositors of the failed Silicon Valley and Signature banks, but Massachusetts attorneys who have spent every waking hour of the past two-plus weeks responding to the concerns of anxious

Informal political discussions with peers can increase trust in democracy and improve understanding of self and others. However, these benefits do not often materialize because people tend to shy away from political discussions and because friendship networks rarely expose highly divergent political views. In a large-scale experiment, we overcome these limitations by matching participants to peers selected for sharing common interests and demographics and exposing them to a personal message abou...