The Moral Roots of Partisan Division: How Moral Conviction Heightens Affective Polarization

Garrett, Kristin N.; Bankert, Alexa

doi:10.1017/s000712341700059x

Cited by 90 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…That is, partisans "like" the in-party and "dislike" the out-party in part because the former are perceived to be fairer, more trustworthy, less prejudiced-in other words, more benevolent-than the latter. This perspective accords well with the distinct role of moral psychology in contemporary American politics, as outlined in the introduction (Brady et al, 2017;Koleva et al, 2012;Ryan, 2014Ryan, , 2017, as well as the apparent moderating effect of moral conviction on affective polarization (Garrett & Bankert, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Moral polarization and out-party hostility in the US political context

Tappin

McKay

2019

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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Affective polarization describes the phenomenon whereby people identifying as Republican or Democrat tend to view opposing partisans negatively and co-partisans positively. Though extensively studied, there remain important gaps in scholarly understanding of affective polarization. In particular, (a) how it relates to the distinct behavioural phenomena of in-party “love” vs. out-party hostility; and (b) to what extent it reflects a generalized evaluative disparity between partisans vs. a domain-specific disparity in evaluation. We report the results of an investigation that bears on both of these questions. Specifically, drawing on recent trends in political science and psychology, we hypothesize that moral polarization—the tendency to view opposing partisans’ moral character negatively, and co-partisans’ moral character positively—will be associated with behavioural hostility towards the out-party. We test this hypothesis in two preregistered studies comprising behavioural measures and large convenience samples of US partisans (combined N = 1354). Our results strike an optimistic chord: Taken together, they suggest that this association is probably small and somewhat tenuous. Though moral polarization itself was large—perhaps exceeding prior estimates of trait affective polarization—even the most morally polarized partisans appeared reluctant to engage in a mild form of out-party hostility. These findings converge with recent evidence that polarization—moral or otherwise—has yet to translate into the average US partisan wanting to express hostile and directly discriminatory behaviour toward their out-party counterparts.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Moral polarization and out-party hostility in the US political context

Tappin

McKay

2019

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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“…Moral conviction evokes powerful feelings of anger and disgust (Mullen & Skitka, ; Ryan, ), motivates greater social distance from and intolerance toward opponents (Skitka et al, ; Wright, Cullum, & Schwab, ), and elicits punitive responses like retribution, vigilantism, and violence (Reifen Tagar et al, ; Skitka & Houston, ; Zaal et al, ). Moralized attitudes also lead citizens to oppose political compromise and reject material incentives (Ryan, ), and they heighten partisan bias, hostility, and division (Garrett & Bankert, ). At the same time though, moral conviction motivates political engagement, cause‐related activism, and courage to stand against injustice despite pressure to conform (Skitka & Bauman, ; Skitka, Hanson, & Wisneski, ; van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, ).…”

Section: Moral Convictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fired Up by Morality: The Unique Physiological Response Tied to Moral Conviction in Politics

Garrett

2018

Political Psychology

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Studies provide mounting evidence that morally convicted attitudes elicit passionate and unyielding political responses. Questions remain, however, whether these effects occur because moral conviction is another strong, versus a distinctly moral dimension of attitude strength. Building on work in moral psychology and neuroscience, I argue that moral conviction stems from a distinctive mode of mental processing that is tied to automatic affective reactions. Testing this idea using a lab experiment designed to capture self‐reported moral conviction and physiological arousal, I find that conviction about political objects positively predicts arousal evoked by the objects, while attitude extremity and importance do not. These findings suggest that moral conviction items do tap into moral processing, helping to validate the conviction measure. They also illustrate the value of using physiological indicators to study politics, help explain why morally convicted attitudes trigger such fervent responses, and raise normative questions about political conflict and compromise.

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“…I assume that agent i 's dislike of

- i

is an increasing function of

s_{- i}^{i, t}

. It is intuitive and supported by research that individuals form inferences about the moral character of others based on their actions (Uhlmann et al., ), and that a willingness to sacrifice self‐interest for the social good is widely considered to be fundamental to morality and quality of character (Greene, ; Curry et al., ; Moshagen et al., ), which can in turn drive hostility (Haidt, ; Ryan, ; Garrett and Bankert, ). Based on this assumption regarding dislike, I define two forms of affective polarization as follows, with E 0 (.)…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Just a Big Misunderstanding? Bias and Bayesian Affective Polarization

Stone

2020

Int Economic Review

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I present a model of affective polarization—growth in hostility over time between two parties—via quasi‐Bayesian inference. In the model, two agents repeatedly choose actions. Each choice is based on a balance of concerns for private interests and the social good. More weight is put on private interests when an agent's character is intrinsically more self‐serving and when the other agent is believed to be more self‐serving. Each agent Bayesian updates about the other's character, and dislikes the other more when she is perceived as more self‐serving. I characterize the effects on growth in dislike of three biases: a prior bias against the other agent's character, the false consensus bias, and limited strategic thinking. Prior bias against the other's character remains constant or declines over time, and actions do not diverge. The other two biases cause actions to become more extreme over time and repeatedly be “worse” than expected, causing mutual growth in dislike, that is, affective polarization. The magnitude of dislike can become arbitrarily large—even when both players are arbitrarily “good” (unselfish). The results imply that seemingly irrelevant cognitive biases can be an important cause of the devolution of relationships, in politics and beyond, and that subtlety and unawareness of bias can be key factors driving the degree of polarization.

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The Moral Roots of Partisan Division: How Moral Conviction Heightens Affective Polarization

Cited by 90 publications

References 65 publications

Moral polarization and out-party hostility in the US political context

Moral polarization and out-party hostility in the US political context

Fired Up by Morality: The Unique Physiological Response Tied to Moral Conviction in Politics

Just a Big Misunderstanding? Bias and Bayesian Affective Polarization

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