(Mis)estimating Affective Polarization

Druckman, James N.; Klar, Samara; Krupnikov, Yanna; Levendusky, Matthew; Ryan, Joseph B.

doi:10.1086/715603

Cited by 118 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Moreover, given that extreme individuals tend to be politically coherent and certain, the findings reported in this work seem to be at odds with previous research suggesting that people dislike strong partisans ( 67 , 68 ). However, as previously argued ( 20 ), people holding politically coherent opinions may not necessarily be strong partisans, as they simply could hold liberal or conservative views without being supporters of any specific political party.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Political coherence and certainty as drivers of interpersonal liking over and above similarity

Zimmerman

Garbulsky²,

Ariely

et al. 2022

Sci. Adv.

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Affective polarization and political segregation have become a serious threat to democratic societies. One standard explanation for these phenomena is that people like and prefer interacting with similar others. However, similarity may not be the only driver of interpersonal liking in the political domain, and other factors, yet to be uncovered, could play an important role. Here, we hypothesized that beyond the effect of similarity, people show greater preference for individuals with politically coherent and confident opinions. To test this idea, we performed two behavioral studies consisting of one-shot face-to-face pairwise interactions. We found that people with ambiguous or ambivalent views were nonreciprocally attracted to confident and coherent ingroups. A third experimental study confirmed that politically coherent and confident profiles are rated as more attractive than targets with ambiguous or ambivalent opinions. Overall, these findings unfold the key drivers of the affability between people who discuss politics.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Political coherence and certainty as drivers of interpersonal liking over and above similarity

Zimmerman

Garbulsky²,

Ariely

et al. 2022

Sci. Adv.

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“…By exaggerating the prototypical characteristics of out-group members in these ways, ideologues increase the perceived social distance between different groups and might stereotype, discredit or marginalize the out-group. Partisans might also represent their adversaries as more obstructionist 95 , more ideologically extreme 122 , 151 – 153 , more prejudiced against the in-group 55 , or more violent 154 than they actually are. Presumably, distorting images of the out-group as deviant, hostile, stubborn, extreme and unreasonable serves to justify treating the out-group unfavourably 55 , 89 , 95 , 155 .…”

Section: Cognitive–motivational Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, media coverage that is critical of polarization among political elites can reduce issue polarization among citizens, presumably because people do not want to be seen (by themselves or others) as extremists 122 , 158 – 160 . Many people, it seems, are amenable to having their misperceptions of the other side corrected, which lowers affective polarization 150 , 153 , 154 .…”

Section: Cognitive–motivational Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

Jost

Baldassarri²,

Druckman³

2022

Nat Rev Psychol

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Healthy democratic polities feature competing visions of a good society but also require some level of cooperation and institutional trust. Democracy is at risk when citizens become so polarized that an ‘us versus them’ mentality dominates. Despite a vast multidisciplinary literature, no coherent conceptual framework of the microlevel dynamics that increase or decrease polarization has been presented. In this Review, we provide a conceptual framework to integrate scientific knowledge about cognitive–motivational mechanisms that influence political polarization and the social-communicative contexts in which they are enacted. Ego-justifying and group-justifying motives lead individuals to defend their own pre-existing beliefs and those of their in-group, respectively. However, a distinct class of system-justifying motives contributes to asymmetric forms of polarization. Whereas conservative-rightist ideology is associated with valuing tradition, social order and maintenance of the status quo, liberal-leftist ideology is associated with a push for egalitarian social change. These cognitive–motivational mechanisms interact with social influence processes linked to communication source, message and channel factors, all of which might contribute to increased or decreased polarization. We conclude with a discussion of unanswered questions and ways in which our framework can be extended to the study of culture and institutions.

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“…Thus, by providing a more complex view of each outgroup member, individuals can evaluate them based on their personal merit rather than their stereotypical group memberships [6]. In politics, research suggests that people consistently stereotype outpartisans as being politically engaged extreme ideologues when no other information is provided about them which exacerbates outpartisan hostility [17]; when outpartisans were instead described as talking politics rarely and being ideologically moderate (who in reality is the modal outpartisan), outpartisans were evaluated more positively [17,35]. Similarly, participants evaluated outpartisans who were less interested in politics more positively in a hypothetical roommate selection experiment [68].…”

Section: Decategorizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

'Walking Into a Fire Hoping You Don't Catch': Strategies and Designs to Facilitate Cross-Partisan Online Discussions

Rajadesingan

Duran

Resnick

et al. 2021

Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.

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While cross-partisan conversations are central to a vibrant deliberative democracy, these conversations are hard to have, especially amidst unprecedented levels of partisan animosity we observe today. We report on a qualitative study of 17 US residents who engage with outpartisans on Reddit to understand what they look for in these interactions, and the strategies they adopt. We find that users have multiple, sometimes contradictory expectations of these conversations, ranging from deliberative discussions to entertainment and banter. In aiming to foster 'good' cross-partisan discussions, users make strategic choices on which subreddits to participate in, who to engage with and how to talk to outpartisans, often establishing common ground, complimenting, and remaining dispassionate in their interactions. Further, contrary to offline settings where knowing more about outpartisan interlocutors help manage disagreements, on Reddit, users look to actively learn as little as possible about them for fear that such information may bias their interactions. However, through design probes, we find that users are actually open to knowing certain kinds of information about their interlocutors, such as non-political subreddits that they both participate in, and to having that information made visible to their interlocutors. However, making other information visible, such as the other subreddits that they participate in or their past comments, though potentially humanizing, raises concerns around privacy and misuse of that information for personal attacks especially among women and minority groups. Finally, we identify important challenges and opportunities in designing to improve online cross-partisan interactions in today's hyper-polarized environment.

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(Mis)estimating Affective Polarization

Cited by 118 publications

References 39 publications

Political coherence and certainty as drivers of interpersonal liking over and above similarity

Political coherence and certainty as drivers of interpersonal liking over and above similarity

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

'Walking Into a Fire Hoping You Don't Catch': Strategies and Designs to Facilitate Cross-Partisan Online Discussions

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