The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
You talked politics with your mother, brother, bartender and banker, and all it did was jack up your blood pressure.
You know that you are not alone. In this divisive period in American politics, two professors in Nebraska and one in California decided to conduct a survey in March 2017 to see how pervasive were high stress, conflict with family and friends, and even health problems related to thinking and talking about politics.
The three — Kevin Smith and John Hibbing, political science professors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Hibbing’s son, Matthew, an associate professor at the University of California, Merced — wrote a paper on their findings last year. They expect it to be published in a journal this year.
- 38% said politics has caused them to be stressed.
- 31.8% said exposure to media outlets promoting a contrary view…
