"call a Republican."
"call a Democrat."
"We wanted to see what would happen when people had the chance to connect with people directly - would they choose to argue and fight, or would they choose to find common ground?"
"[Would they choose] the release of cortisol or the release of cannabinoids?"
A mental health startup installed linked public phone booths in San Francisco and Abilene, Texas to prompt cross-party conversations: a red booth urging callers to "call a Republican" and a blue booth urging callers to "call a Democrat." The phones ring between the two cities to create direct, stranger-to-stranger exchanges across opposing political viewpoints. The initiative stems from neuroscience linking political argument to cortisol-driven stress and civil human-to-human conversation to dopamine and cannabinoid-driven happiness. The project aims to observe whether callers choose confrontation or common ground; the vast majority of callers have chosen to seek common ground.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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