The “Prejudiced Personality” and the Origins of Partisan Strength, Affective Polarization, and Partisan Sorting

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the American public has become more strongly partisan, affectively polarized, and sorted (i.e., aligned their partisanship with their policy preferences). This article presents a theory of partisanship in contemporary American politics as rooted in “the prejudiced personality”: need for closure. Based on uncertainty‐identity theory and the theory of groups as epistemic providers, I argue that today's polarized parties are more appealing to individuals high in the need for closure, causing them to (1) identify strongly with their party, (2) to be intolerant of members of the opposing party, and (3) to conform to partisan authorities (i.e., to sort). The current article examines both observational and experimental data in assessing the effects of need for closure on partisan strength, affective polarization, and sorting. I conclude by discussing the normative implications of a mass public driven not by ideology or worldviews but by a group‐centric and prejudiced cognitive style.

Individual narcissism, need for closure and the two sides of negative partisanship

“…Looking at negative partisan affect, Webster (2018) reported a negative link with extraversion as well as a negative link between negative affect strength and agreeableness. Last, Luttig (2018) found need for closure to relate positively to partisan identity strength and in-and outparty affect as individuals with high need for closure desire certainty and closure which both types of partisan attachments provide. They thus apply dogmatic styles of reasoning to the political world which leads to a mind-set that is dominated by inter-group categorizations of "us" and "them".…”

“…Previous studies already showed for positive party identification that such an attachment fulfils different individual needs: Openness to new experiences as well as agreeableness were found to relate positively to the likelihood of identifying with a political party in different countries (Bakker, Hopmann, & Persson, 2015;Gerber et al, 2012). So far, no study analysed the link between personality and negative party identification and the resulting partisanship types and only very few works observed related phenomena, such as negative partisan affect (Webster, 2018) and affective polarization (Luttig, 2018;Satherley, Sibley, & Osborne, 2020).…”

The Personality Basis of Political Preferences

“…Indeed, crystallized political identities may even condition the effect of dispositional needs for security and certainty. Once a particular political identity has become an important part of the self, evidence suggests that trait measures of need for closure and cognitive inflexibility are associated with greater strength of partisan identification among members of parties on both the right and the left (Luttig, 2018;Zmigrod, Rentfrow, & Robbins, 2020).…”

Affective blocs: Understanding affective polarization in multiparty systems

“…They also present evidence that this negative affect is connected to nonpolitical attitudes, such as views of the prospect of one's child marrying someone who supports the other party and an evaluation of personality traits of out-group members. Since then, a number of studies have provided further evidence of the existence of AP and its importance, have debated the issue, or have explored related phenomena (e.g., Reiljan 2020; Gidron et al 2019;Iyengar & Westwood 2015;Iyengar & Krupenkin 2018;Westwood et al 2018;Webster & Abramowitz 2017;Luttig 2018;Levendusky 2018;Huddy et al 2015;Huddy et al 2018;Satherley et al 2020;Skytte 2020;Druckman & Levendusky 2019;Boxell et al 2020). The same phenomenon has also been studied by others using somewhat different terminology (Lupu 2015;Lauka et al 2018).…”