Measuring the direction and strength of partisan identity

Huddy, Leonie; Davies, Caitlin L.; Sandor, Joseph

doi:10.4337/9781788111997.00014

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our findings speak also to the debate about whether partisanship is expressive or instrumental (see Huddy et al 2020 for a review). The correlations between welfare tradeoffs, partisanship, and ideology suggest that expressive and instrumental partisanship may synergize to motivate political behavior.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

“…According to Tajfel (1981), once people know that they are part of a group, they have an emotional attachment to it. Partisan identity theory contends that people are loyal to their party because they feel close to it regardless of the party's policies (see Huddy et al 2020 for a review). Thus, strong partisans should be more willing to sacrifice for their party (Huddy et al 2015).…”

Section: Partisanship and Ideology As Determinants Of Tradeoff Ratiosmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How much will people sacrifice to support or oppose political parties? Extending previous work on the psychology of interpersonal cooperation, we propose that people's minds compute a distinct cost-benefit ratio-a welfare tradeoff ratio-that regulates their choices to help or hurt political parties. In two experiments, participants decide whether to financially help and hurt the inparty and outparty. The results show that participants were extremely consistent (> 90%) while making dozens of decisions in a randomized order, providing evidence for tradeoff ratios toward parties. Moreover, participants' ratios correlated in the expected directions with partisanship, political ideology, and feelings of enthusiasm and anger toward each party, corroborating that these ratios are politically meaningful. Generally, most participants were willing to sacrifice at least some money to help their inparty and hurt the outparty. At the same time, a sizable minority hurt their inparty and helped their outparty. Welfare tradeoff ratios push our understanding of partisanship beyond the classic debate about whether voters are rational or irrational. Underneath the turbulent surface of partisan passions hide precise calculations that proportion our altruism and spite toward parties.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: Partisanship and Ideology As Determinants Of Tradeoff Ratiosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We use three validated moderators (Huddy et al, 2020) measuring the strength of people's political attachments. Party strength: we fold a 7-point party ID question to create a 4-point party strength measure from Independent to Strong Democrat/ Republican.…”

Section: Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposure to Extremely Partisan News from the Other Political Side Shows Scarce Boomerang Effects

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A narrow information diet may be partly to blame for the growing political divides in the United States, suggesting exposure to dissimilar views as a remedy. These efforts, however, could be counterproductive, exacerbating attitude and affective polarization. Yet findings on whether such boomerang effect exists are mixed and the consequences of dissimilar exposure on other important outcomes remain unexplored. To contribute to this debate, we rely on a preregistered longitudinal experimental design combining participants’ survey self-reports and their behavioral browsing data, in which one should observe boomerang effects. We incentivized liberals to read political articles on extreme conservative outlets (Breitbart, The American Spectator, and The Blaze) and conservatives to read extreme left-leaning sites (Mother Jones, Democracy Now, and The Nation). We maximize ecological validity by embedding the treatment in a larger project that tracks over time changes in online exposure and attitudes. We explored the effects on attitude and affective polarization, as well as on perceptions of the political system, support for democratic principles, and personal well-being. Overall we find little evidence of boomerang effects.

show abstract

Challenging by Cueing? An Investigation of Party and Leader Cueing Effects Across Mainstream and Challenger Party Voters

Torcal,

Martini,

Carty

2024

Polit Behav

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The emergence of new challenger parties calls for a reassessment of the party-model of opinion formation by examining different sources of cues across types of voters and the conditions that make cueing more effective. Although new challenger parties may lack sufficient time to develop identification with groups and distinctive party reputations, they may still provide effective cues and reduce their competitive disadvantage in developing affective social identity ties. This article investigates this argument by assessing the impact of party and leader cues on voters from mainstream and challenger parties and examining how expressive partisanship (partisan social identities) and instrumental partisanship (party competence evaluations) moderate these effects. Utilizing data from a survey experiment conducted in Spain during a period of party system restructuring, we find similar cueing effects across party and leader cues when comparing voters of both mainstream and challenger parties. Additionally, contrary to our expectations, we observe that cueing effects for mainstream party voters combine expressive and instrumental reasoning, while those for new challenger party voters are driven by perceptions of party competence reputation only. These findings challenge the prevailing belief that familiarity and time enhance cueing effects. They also deviate from socio-psychological approaches that emphasize the emotional and identity components of partisanship in strengthening cueing effects.

show abstract

Measuring the direction and strength of partisan identity

Cited by 4 publications

References 20 publications

Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties

Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties

Exposure to Extremely Partisan News from the Other Political Side Shows Scarce Boomerang Effects

Challenging by Cueing? An Investigation of Party and Leader Cueing Effects Across Mainstream and Challenger Party Voters

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About