While previously polarization was primarily seen only in issue-based terms, a new type of division has emerged the mass public recent years: Ordinary Americans increasingly dislike and distrust those from other party. Democrats Republicans both say that party's members are hypocritical, selfish, closed-minded, they unwilling to socialize across party lines. This phenomenon animosity between parties is known as affective polarization. We trace its origins power partisanship social identity,...

Journal Article Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization Get access Shanto Iyengar, Iyengar 1Shanto is the Harry & Norman Chandler Professor of Communication and Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Gaurav Sood, Sood 2Gaurav a postdoctoral research associate, Woodrow Wilson School Public International Affairs, Princeton Princeton, NJ, Yphtach Lelkes 3Yphtach an Assistant...

The debate on mass polarization is itself polarized. Some argue that the United States in midst of a culture war; others claims are exaggerated. As multifaceted concept, both sides can be correct. I review four distinct manifestations have appeared public opinion literature—ideological consistency, ideological divergence, perceived polarization, and affective polarization—and discuss ways which each has been measured. Then, using longitudinal data from American National Election Studies...

Over the last two decades, as number of media choices available to consumers has exploded, so too have worries over self‐selection into audiences. Some fear greater apathy, others heightened polarization. In this article, we shed light on latter possibility. We identify impact access broadband Internet affective polarization by exploiting differences in availability brought about variation state right‐of‐way regulations (ROW). merge state‐level regulation data with county‐level penetration...

We examine whether individual differences in needs for security and certainty predict conservative (vs. liberal) position on both cultural economic political issues these effects are conditional nation-level characteristics individual-level engagement. Analyses with cross-national data from 51 nations reveal that valuing conformity, security, tradition over self-direction stimulation (a) predicts ideological self-placement the right, but only among people high engagement within relatively...

Partisanship increasingly factors into the behavior of Americans in both political and nonpolitical situations, yet bounds partisan prejudice are largely unknown. In this paper, we systematically evaluate limits using a series five studies situated within typology prejudice. We find that predicts suppression hostile rhetoric toward one’s own party, avoidance members opposition, desire for preferential treatment party. While these behaviors may cause incidental or indirect harm to even most...

The right–left dimension is ubiquitous in politics, but prior perspectives provide conflicting accounts of whether cultural and economic attitudes are typically aligned on this within mass publics around the world. Using survey data from ninety-nine nations, study finds not only that attitude organization uncommon, it more common for culturally economically right-wing to correlate negatively with each other, an structure reflecting a contrast between desires protection vs. freedom . This...

Abstract Democrats and Republicans clearly dislike one another. Yet, scholars debate whether policy disagreement or partisan identity, per se, drives interparty animus. Past studies suggest the relationship between partisanship interpersonal affect is spurious, driven by inferred preferences. We argue, instead, that preferences signal identity when parties' stances on an issue are well‐known. Using a nationally representative survey four preregistered experiments, we disentangle effects of...

Significance Polarization is rising while political debates are moving to online social platforms. In such settings, algorithms used recommend new connections users, through so-called link recommendation algorithms. Users often recommended based on structural similarity (e.g., nodes sharing many neighbors similar). We show that preferentially establishing links with structurally similar potentiates opinion polarization by stimulating network topologies well-defined communities (even in the...

The presence of an African-American candidate on the ballot running for President in 2008 raises possibility that election outcome might have been influenced by anti-African-American racism among voters. This paper uses data from Associated Press-Yahoo! News-Stanford University survey to explore this possibility, using measures both explicit (symbolic racism) and implicit (the Affect Misattribution Procedure). parameters multinomial logistic regression equations were estimated test...

Political scientists who study the interplay between personality and politics overwhelmingly rely on short scales. We explore whether length of employed scales affects criterion validity show that need for cognition (NfC) increases reliance party cues, but only when a longer measure is employed. Additionally, while NfC policy information, effect more than twice as large used. Finally, Big Five traits have been dismissed irrelevant to political ideology yield stronger consistent associations...

Some argue that there is an organic connection between being religious and politically conservative. We evaluate alternative thesis the relation religiosity political conservatism largely results from engagement with discourse indicates these characteristics go together. In a combined sample of national survey respondents 1996 to 2008, was associated conservative positions on wide range attitudes values among highly engaged, but this association generally weaker or nonexistent those less...

Abstract Many hoped that social networking sites would allow for the open exchange of information and a revival public sphere. Unfortunately, conversations on media are often toxic not conducive to healthy political discussions. Twitter, most widely used network discussions, doubled limit characters in tweet November 2017, which provided an opportunity study effect technological affordances discussions using discontinuous time series design. Using supervised unsupervised natural language...

Abstract At least two theories have been offered that explain the rise of affective polarization. Some scholars, relying on social identity theory, argue as relevance party identification increased, Americans became more likely to see their in-party in positive terms and out-party negative terms. Other scholars polarization is a reaction increasingly extreme political actors. This study seeks arbitrate between these through survey experiment which asks respondents rate candidates whose (or...

Abstract American partisans are far more hostile towards out-party members than they were 40 years ago. While this phenomenon, often called affective polarization, is well-documented, political scientists disagree on its cause. One group of scholars believes that polarization driven by processes related to social identity theory. In particular, cross-cutting identities have declined in America, and toxic communication continuously primes partisan resentment. Recently, several pointed another...

Why do citizens rely on partisan cues when forming political judgments? We assess the relative importance of two motives for cue-following using a series survey experiments. find no support bounded rationality hypothesis that cue receptivity is highest among with low cognitive resources. Meanwhile, we mixed expressive utility people both strong social identification and high The strength this latter evidence varies across studies, resource measures, condition comparisons. results suggest...

Research on personality and political preferences generally assumes unidirectional causal influence of the former latter. However, there are reasons to believe that citizens might adopt what they perceive as politically congruent psychological attributes, or at least be motivated view themselves having these attributes. We test this hypothesis in a series studies. Results preregistered panel analyses three countries suggest reciprocal influences between self-reported traits preferences. In...

Significance Political polarization threatens democracy in America. This article helps illuminate what drives it, as well factors account for its asymmetric nature. In particular, we focus on positive feedback among members of Congress the key mechanism polarization. We show how public opinion, which responds to laws legislators make, turn dynamics political elites. Specifically, find that voters’ “policy mood,” i.e., whether opinion leans a more liberal or conservative direction,...

Abstract Algorithms play a critical role in steering online attention on social media. Many have alleged that algorithms can perpetuate bias. This study audited shadowbanning, where user or their content is temporarily hidden Twitter. We repeatedly tested whether stratified random sample of American Twitter accounts (n ≈ 25,000) had been subject to various forms shadowbans. then identified the type and tweet characteristics predict shadowban. In general, shadowbans are rare. found with...

Democratic regimes flourish only when there is broad acceptance of an extensive set norms and values. In the United States, fundamental democratic have recently come under threat from prominent Republican officials. We investigate whether this antidemocratic posture has spread elite level to rank-and-file partisans. Exploiting data a massive repeated cross-sectional panel survey ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi>...

Most Americans support liberal policies on the social welfare agenda, dominant policy cleavage in American politics. Yet a striking feature of US party system is its tendency to equilibrium. How, then, does Republican Party minimize defection agenda? The results this study illustrate deep ideological asymmetry between parties. identifiers are ideologically aware and oriented degree that far exceeds their Democratic counterparts. Our investigation, which utilizes cross-sectional, longitudinal...