  Recently, there has been significant attention on online political
incivility. While previous research suggests that uncivil political comments
lead people to be less willing to see more comments on the same issue, two
critical questions have received limited exploration: (1) Are people exposed to
uncivil political comments less willing to see other comments from the person
who posted the uncivil comment?; (2) Are people exposed to uncivil political
comments less willing to see comments from people who have different thoughts
than them? To address these questions, the present study conducted a
preregistered online survey experiment targeting Japanese citizens, focusing on
the pro- vs anti-Kishida cabinet conflict in Japan. The results show that the
participants were less willing to see other comments by the person who posted
the comment when the comment was uncivil than when it was civil. In addition,
the anti-Kishida participants were less willing to see political opinions
posted online by people who have different thoughts than them when the comment
was uncivil than when it was civil, while the participants in the other
subgroups did not show a similar tendency. These findings suggest that uncivil
expressions in online political communication might prompt people to avoid
reading opinions from those who have different thoughts than them, which might
promote political echo chambers.
