Vincent Cicchirillo (University of Texas at Austin), Jay Hmielowski, & Myiah Hutchens recently had a paper accepted for publication at the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Their paper looked at the relationship between watching more contentious political news content (e.g., Hannity, The O’Reilly Factor) and people’s perceptions of whether it is acceptable to use aggressive tactics when talking about politics with other people online. Their study found a mainstreaming effect of watching this content on people’s perceptions and willingness to use aggressive tactics in online discussion spaces. Specifically, people with higher levels of trait verbal aggression (i.e., individuals who tend to use aggressive tactics when communicating with others) showed decreases in their willingness and perceived acceptability of using aggressive tactics when talking to others online. By contrast, individuals low in verbal aggression showed greater tendencies to use aggressive tactics and perceive this as acceptable behavior. Their article can be found in the most recent issue of Cyberpsychology here.