In-Group Love Versus Out-Group Hate: Which Is More Important to Partisans and When?

Amira, Karyn; Wright, Jennifer; Goya‐Tocchetto, Daniela

doi:10.1007/s11109-019-09557-6

Cited by 48 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…A hostile political climate, however, may shift the balance. Research suggests that the danger of "symbolic" threats against the moral values of one's group can make it "necessary to strike back, to undermine the credibility of the opposition, and to 'hit them where it hurts"' (Amira, Wright and Goya-Tocchetto 2019). Twitter -with its fast diffusion of moralizing and emotion-laden political content (Brady et al 2017) -may have fostered such a hostile environment, making considerations of hurting the out-party loom larger when deciding which news stories to share.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter

et al. 2021

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The rise of “fake news” is a major concern in contemporary Western democracies. Yet, research on the psychological motivations behind the spread of political fake news on social media is surprisingly limited. Are citizens who share fake news ignorant and lazy? Are they fueled by sinister motives, seeking to disrupt the social status quo? Or do they seek to attack partisan opponents in an increasingly polarized political environment? This article is the first to test these competing hypotheses based on a careful mapping of psychological profiles of over 2,300 American Twitter users linked to behavioral sharing data and sentiment analyses of more than 500,000 news story headlines. The findings contradict the ignorance perspective but provide some support for the disruption perspective and strong support for the partisan polarization perspective. Thus, individuals who report hating their political opponents are the most likely to share political fake news and selectively share content that is useful for derogating these opponents. Overall, our findings show that fake news sharing is fueled by the same psychological motivations that drive other forms of partisan behavior, including sharing partisan news from traditional and credible news sources.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter

et al. 2021

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“…If the admission committee awards scholarship to the candidate who shares their partisanship, is that primarily because they prefer and want to help the in-party member or dislike and want to disadvantage an out-party candidate? Some scholars argue that positive partisanship is a stronger driver of individual attitudes and behaviors (Amira et al, 2019;Lelkes & Westwood, 2017), others find that negative partisanships matters more (Abramowitz & Webster, 2016;Iyengar & Krupenkin, 2018), and yet other work suggests that whether positive or negative partisanship exerts stronger effects on political behavior depends on the behavior itself, such as volunteering for a party versus AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA participating in a protest (Bankert, 2020;Caruana et al, 2015;Iyengar et al, 2019), as we detail below.…”

Section: Affective Polarization On Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Some scholars claim that contemporary American politics is characterized by positive partisanship, which is the culprit of partisan bias. The vast majority of partisans identify more with their own party rather than against the opposite side (Theodoridis, 2019), and this in-party love has greater effects on vote choice (Bankert, 2020;Caruana et al, 2015;Medeiros & Noël, 2014) and what news partisans want to disseminate (i.e., recommending to publish an article favoring the in-party versus an article criticizing the out-party; Amira et al, 2019; suppressing an article hostile toward the in-party versus promoting an article attacks the out-party, Lelkes & Westwood, 2017). Other work, however, suggests negative partisanship exceeds positive partisanship (Finkel et al, 2020) and drives political cognitions and behaviors.…”

Section: Affective Polarization and Elite Expressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Politicians (and their party) are frequently challenged and attacked by pundits and journalists and by other politicians and citizens on traditional and social media (e.g., Berry & Sobieraj, 2013;Geer, 2008Geer, , 2012Le et al, 2017;Puglisi & Snyder Jr, 2011). Under such circumstances, promoting their own party may not be enough, and politicians need to strike back to win the game (Amira et al, 2019). Indeed, politicians who are attacked employ more negative campaigning, responding to each attack with an attack (Iyengar, 2018;Lau & Pomper, 2001), although there is little evidence that negative campaigns are effective in getting votes (see Lau & Rovner, 2009;Lau et al, 2007 for metaanalyses).…”

Section: Affective Polarization and Elite Expressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Affective polarization on social media: In-party love among American politicians, greater engagement with out-party hate among ordinary users

Yu¹,

Wojcieszak²,

Casas³

2021

Preprint

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Americans view their in-party members positively and out-party members negatively. It remains unclear, however, whether in-party love (i.e., positive partisanship) or out-party hate (i.e., negative partisanship) more strongly influences political attitudes and behaviors. Unlike past work, which relies on survey self-reports or experimental designs among ordinary citizens, this pre-registered project examines actual social media expressions of an exhaustive list of American politicians as well as citizens’ engagement with these posts. Relying on 1,195,844 tweets sent by 564 political elites (i.e., members of US House and Senate, Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees from 2000 to 2020, and members of the Trump Cabinet) and machine learning to reliably classify the tone of the tweets, we show that elite expressions online are driven by positive partisanship: politicians are more likely to post tweets positive toward their in-party than tweets negative toward the out-party. However, more ideologically extreme politicians and those in the opposition (i.e., the Democrats) are more negative toward the out-party than those ideologically moderate and whose party is in power. Furthermore, examining how Twitter users react to these messages, we find that negative partisanship plays a greater role in online engagement among ordinary citizens (i.e., users are more likely to like and share politicians’ tweets negative toward the out-party than tweets positive toward the in-party). This project has important theoretical and democratic implications, and extends the use of trace data and computational methods in political communication.

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“…The puzzle of white evangelical support for Trump, therefore, invites the question of how members of a politically-important social group construct feelings toward candidates when they lack either shared policy goals or shared social identity with the candidate. More specifically, recent literature in political science demonstrates that affective orientations are a key determinant of polarization in the electorate and among elected officials (Amira et al, 2021; Huddy et al, 2015; Iyengar et al, 2012; Iyengar & Westwood, 2014; Layman et al, 2006; Martherus et al, 2021; Mason, 2016, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; Mason & Wronski, 2018; Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018). The shift in focus on partisan affect has helped uncover the complex dynamics of affective assessments across partisan lines, but work remains to examine its role in intraparty contests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting US First: How Outgroup Hostilities and Defense of the Status Quo Motivate White Evangelical Affect Toward Candidates in U.S. Elections 2004 to 2016

Marsh

2021

American Politics Research

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How do voters construct feelings toward inparty elites? More specifically, how do they do so when they lack a shared policy agenda or shared salient social identity with candidates beyond partisan identification? In this paper, I investigate this puzzle by developing a theory of Putting America First to explain white evangelical affect toward Republican presidential candidates from 2004 to 2016. Using ANES surveys from 2004 to 2016, I test the effectiveness of this model of candidate affect. I find that shared outgroup hostility, what I call Putting Us First, motivates positive affect for presidential candidates among white evangelicals, regardless of shared policy objectives and descriptive representation. Overtime, white evangelicals’ affect is driven by outgroup hostilities rather than Culture Wars values. Overall, this informs our understanding of voter affect toward candidates and the increasingly important role of social outgroup hostility in defense of the status quo.

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In-Group Love Versus Out-Group Hate: Which Is More Important to Partisans and When?

Cited by 48 publications

References 26 publications

Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter

Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter

Affective polarization on social media: In-party love among American politicians, greater engagement with out-party hate among ordinary users

Putting US First: How Outgroup Hostilities and Defense of the Status Quo Motivate White Evangelical Affect Toward Candidates in U.S. Elections 2004 to 2016

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