More Polarized but More Independent

Abstract

In three nationally representative surveys of U.S. residents (N = 10 million) from 1970 to 2015, more Americans in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) identified as Independent, including when age effects were controlled. More in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) expressed polarized political views, including stronger political party affiliation or more extreme ideological self-categorization (liberal vs. conservative) with fewer identifying as moderate. The correlation between party affiliation and ideological views grew stronger over time. The overall trend since the 1970s was toward more Americans identifying as Republican or conservative. Older adults were more likely to identify as conservative and Republican. More Millennials (born 1980-1994) identify as conservative than either GenXers or Boomers did at the same age, and fewer are Democrats compared with Boomers. These trends are discussed in the context of social identification processes and their implications for the political dynamics in the United States.

Parenting, temperament, and attachment security as antecedents of political orientation: Longitudinal evidence from early childhood to age 26.

“…We found that childhood antecedents were differentially related to three aspects of political orientation: ideological conservativism, Republican Party affiliation, and Democratic Party affiliation. This is consistent with nationally representative studies that have found differences in the degree of congruence between political ideology and party affiliation (Twenge et al, 2016). Fearful temperament was associated with ideological conservativism, but not Republican Party affiliation.…”

“…Political ideology and party affiliation at age 26 years were captured with survey questions drawn from the Monitoring the Future Study (Schulenberg et al, 2018). Other nationally representative longitudinal studies, such as the American Freshman survey and the General Social Survey, used similar survey questions (Twenge, Honeycutt, Prislin, & Sherman, 2016). Similar to the analytic strategies used in these studies, we constructed three variables, one representing political ideology and two representing party affiliation.…”

Improving the Electability of Atheists in the United States: A Preliminary Examination

“…More optimistically, a popular incumbent who can intelligently and passionately communicate a secular message may now be able to confidently come out as an atheist and hope to be reelected, and this may be especially true as the nation becomes less religiously affiliated and the secular challenge to the religious right grows (e.g., Hansen 2011). Religiously unaffiliated participants in these studies favored an atheist candidate over a Christian one, which is another reason for atheists to be optimistic about their future political prospects unless this effect is an artifact of the non-religious individuals on mTurk being in some relevant way different from non-religious Americans in general, and the overall sample did report on average more liberal political orientation than Americans in general (see Twenge et al 2016).…”

From Marginal to Mainstream and Vice Versa: Leaders’ Valuation of Diversity While in the Minority versus Majority

“…Worse yet, it may lead to a further narrowing of the minds as each side polarizes its position while professing tolerance for the other. Some suggestive evidence in support of this possibility comes from the research on temporal trends in political views of the various segments of the U.S. population, which showed an increased polarization of the views on both sides of the political spectrum (Twenge, Honeycutt, Prislin, & Sherman, 2016), along with an increase in tolerance (Twenge, Campbell, & Carter, 2014). At a societal level, this has led to tolerance-professing but segregated communities that have all but ceased to interact (Dunkelman, 2014;Motyl, Iyer, Oishi, Trawalter, & Nosek, 2014).…”