An emotional fitness company set out to conduct a social experiment, backed by the neuroscience behind stress, with the goal of bridging the gap between Republicans and Democrats.
Matter Neuroscience began by refurbishing pay phones bought off Facebook Marketplace, and looking at recent election data to find the most liberal and most conservative cities in the country. Then they set the booths up and encouraged people to pick up the phone.
The results, they found, were not only unexpected, but heartwarming, too.
The science behind the experiment
Despite what seem like glaring differences over political ideologies and policies, “we’re all biologically the same,” Beth Stone, who leads marketing, content and the community team at Matter, said.
“It really started as an idea of ‘how can we generate or facilitate more positive conversations that help activate cannabinoids?’” Stone said. “So with that, our content team had the idea to tactically execute it as these phone booths.”
Having a positive interaction with someone boosts the release of natural cannabinoids and increases dopamine levels in the brain. This promotes connection between humans and reduces the negative effects of cortisol, the primary stress hormone, Matter said.
Stone said the team was looking at ideas about how to educate people about the sources of human happiness. They looked at the current national conversation and saw that political discourse is raising cortisol levels, no matter which political party someone identifies with.
That shouldn’t be the norm, they thought. Political conversation should be natural because it’s “what we need to do everyday” to live. So, “The Party Line” was born.
The Party Line
According to recent election data, San Francisco, in Northern California, was the country’s most liberal-leaning city, and Abilene, Texas, was the most conservative-leaning city.
The team found some old pay phones for sale and got to work, using a cellular connection instead of an outdated payphone cable, red and blue paint, and signage to let passersby know what exactly the phones would do.
When someone in San Francisco approached the red-painted pay phone that had a sign saying “Call a Republican,” and picked up the handset, it automatically rings the blue-painted phone with a “Call a Democrat” sign in Abilene — and vice versa.
“The project is called ‘The Party Line,’ and the goal is to get people from different political viewpoints to have meaningful, not hateful conversations, because at a biological level, humans are far more similar than we are different,” the organization said in a post online.
Stone said that at Matter, they believe that people are innately good and they want to be happy.
“They want happiness for those around them, and so for us, our goal was really to see if we could facilitate some of those more positive conversations … ,“ she said. “It’s been successful from what we’ve seen so far, and the majority of these conversations are really positive.”
So far, hundreds of calls from San Francisco to Abilene or Abilene to San Francisco have been recorded through the phones. Stone said conversations have touched on politics, but also have naturally transitioned into cost of living, family connections, day-to-day activities and more.
Quite often, callers have found similarities, laughter and a shared outlook on the state of American politics, videos posted by Matter show.
Dialing down the divisive chatter
Matter has shared recordings of several of the hundreds of conversations had over the phones so far. They range from women laughing over the weather, a stay-at-home mother of four and a childless man realizing they’re both 46, chatting about motorcycle meetups, and more.
Steve, calling from San Francisco, noted the pay phone said to call a Republican.
“Are you a Republican?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” the woman replied.
“You are?” Steve asked.
“Yes, well, no, probably an independent, I would say as I’ve gotten older,” she said. “What are you? Are you a Republican?”
Steve replied, “Oh, God, I don’t know,” later adding, “I’m pretty liberal.”
“Do you see the world as crazy as I do?” he asked. The woman replied, “I do. It’s getting worse and worse every day.”
“It’s getting worse every day,” Steve said. “See, we have so much in common.”
Shane, a correctional officer in Abilene, picked up the ringing phone while on a date. He spoke to Chris, a wine maker and sandwich shop employee in San Francisco. Chris asked Shane about working for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“The best experience, just the other day, I had a conversation with a group of inmates, and we were talking about the Bible and whatnot. We just had the best conversation. And so it’s really a people job, and a lot of different people, a lot of different personalities, a lot of different politics and it’s really cool to talk to people,” Shane replied.
“Hey, well it sounds like you know how to have a normal conversation so I think that’s a good thing,” Chris said.
“Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I love this experiment here,” Shane said. Before hanging up, Chris wished Shane well on the rest of his date.
Steven from San Francisco and Stephanie from Abilene spoke about exactly what Matter intended the pay phone experiment to do.
“So, I am not a Democrat, per se, but I am a resident of San Francisco. I kind of abandoned the Democratic Party. Are you a Republican?” Steven asked.
“I’m not necessarily a Republican. I’m not really a Democrat, either,” the woman replied. “I just feel like there’s so many good points on both sides. It’s really hard for me to make, like a decision, especially, like because there’s so much propaganda out there too.”
“I feel you … I talk to my parents every now and then, but it’s like, there’s like, really strange relations. And, you know, my Dad was a lifelong Democrat, and then he couldn’t vote for Hillary, and then he just went, like, dove head first into Trump, and now he’s just like polluting himself, and our relationship with, like a lot of propaganda,” Steven replied. “And I’m not saying that it’s only coming from the right, you know, there’s so much propaganda to divide everybody while the billionaires, you know, rake in money and kind of screw over the little guy that are normal people like you and me.”
“Especially when you don’t know where to go for good topics or to learn meaningful stuff. But I don’t know, it’s a work in progress. Maybe we’ll get there some day,” she said back.
“I hope so,” Steven said. “We got to work on bringing, you know, our commonalities together.”
“We’re all probably working class, you know, so we got to unite and just come together. And it’s like politics, all they do is divide,” he continued.
“I think America could do better about that for sure,” Stephanie said.
“I already feel the cortisol kind of draining. So, this is very nice. Stephanie, take care,” Steven said before hanging up.
Has political affiliation become a part of our identities?
So, what does it mean when people walk away feeling lighter and happier after a simple conversation with someone they likely won’t speak to ever again?
For Peter Loge, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, it’s inspiring — but also a bit gloomy.
Loge explained that in the past, a person’s political affiliation was a part of them, but it didn’t rise to being part of their core identity like race or religion did.
In the current state of American politics, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican is now at that level.
“Unfortunately, we’re at a point, this experiment shows with these phone booths, where our political party takes on the same characteristics as our faith,” Loge said. “It is not, talk to somebody who supports a policy, it’s talk to somebody who is so alien, so foreign, so far outside of your experience that we need to set up a special technological tool to have you do it. And that’s not good for politics.”
Loge said that it says nothing good about the state of American politics that people can’t talk about their beliefs, policy positions, or the direction of the country in public and online.
Americans as of late tend to define politics as being a clash between “irreconcilable differences,” Loge said, and as the pay phone experiment showed, people are surprised to find out that even though another person thinks differently, “turns out they’re actually a good person.”
Politicians, some media and pundits have used the divisiveness of a handful of political issues to further divide the American people for their own “financial or political gain,” Loge said. “Yet, most people are mostly good most of the time.”
“We can disagree strongly about some important stuff, but most of us just want to live in communities that are supportive and cooperative,” he continued. “So, even if you don’t jump on the phone, maybe remember that, actually, that person with a Trump sticker or Harris sticker on their car isn’t a bumper sticker. Maybe that person is somebody who figures out how to get through rush hour to pick their kid up at day care.”
“This experiment is a good reminder to all of us that we are not our bumper stickers. We’re people, and we’re people who do better when we are curious and ask questions and figure out ways to get along together,” Loge said.
Maury Giles, the CEO of Braver Angels, an organization dedicated to bringing people together across the political spectrum, agreed.
Political polarization has always been around, it was even encouraged by the founders, he said, but current politics have become toxic and coupled with the rise of the digital age, there is a “rapid decline in true human connection,” Giles said.
Americans are resorting to labels instead of connection, he said.
“It’s not that I’m right and you’re wrong anymore. It’s that I’m good and you’re evil and that’s a big step,” Giles said. “When you shift to thinking somebody else is evil, that will shut down dialogue. When dialogue shuts down, coercion and violence is typically what ends up following.”
Giles noted that the conversations stemming from The Party Line spark a realization that people are “hungry for meaningful connection” even when every incentive in the modern age is pointed toward keeping people apart.
The immediacy and ability to reach information and people so easily in the digital age is one thing, coupled with the uncertainty in the rise of artificial intelligence, but the experiment shows, Giles said, that there is still a need for human-to-human interaction.
“We’re in the need of a disruption that reminds us of the power and awe of real human connection,” he said. “How do we tap into the awe of the human experience that comes with connection to remind ourselves of the amazing experience of being a human being?”
Stone noted that after hundreds of calls, and millions of views on videos posted online, the team at Matter Neuroscience did not imagine the response to their project to be so positive.
“It’s just really incredible to hear that type of response and to hear people really connecting and actively trying to connect,” she said.
In a time when politics seems dark, Stone said the pay phones prove that Americans want to find ways to mend. Loge noted that in order to mend, Americans must put down the labels and talk to each other as people.
Loge said he hopes that the pay phone conversations can remind the millions of viewers that “the easiest thing to do is to be a good, kind person.”