The cost of a divided America: an experimental study into destructive behavior

Abstract

Does political polarization lead to dysfunctional behavior? To study this question, we investigate the attitudes of supporters of Donald Trump and of Hillary Clinton towards each other and how these attitudes affect spiteful behavior. We find that both Trump and Clinton supporters display less positive attitudes towards the opposing supporters compared to coinciding supporters. More importantly, we show that significantly more wealth is destroyed if the opponent is an opposing voter. This effect is mainly driven by Clinton voters. This provides the first experimental evidence that political polarization leads to destructive behavior.

Revisiting Gino et al.’s (2009) Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior: A Registered Replication and Extension

“…This view supports an out-group differentiation after witnessing dishonesty. Indeed, extant literature is replete with evidence that the predominant driver of intergroup effects is the in-group (Balliet et al, 2014;Charness et al, 2007;Halevy et al, 2008;McConnell et al, 2018;Weisel & Zultan, 2016), out-group (Gift & Gift, 2015;Mill & Morgan, 2022;Rathje et al, 2021), or both (Abbink & Harris, 2019;Halevy et al, 2012;Lee et al, 2022).…”

Intergroup bias in dishonesty: In-group favouritism, out-group hostility, or both?

“…If the primary hypothesis of an intergroup bias in dishonesty should be supported, the next question would be how to think of the underlying mechanism. In support of out-group hostility as the primary driver (H2a), there is recent evidence that people engage in more dysfunctional behaviour (e.g., destruction of wealth) when the recipient is an opposing voter than a coinciding voter 33 . Since self-serving justifications seem to attenuate the moral costs of dishonesty 34 , an out-group signal of a recipient may very well serve as a cue to lax moral restraints.…”