When Do Psychological Differences Predict Political Differences? Engagement and the Psychological Bases of Political Polarization

Abstract

<p>"Top down" and "bottom up" perspectives on political polarization have unfolded on largely parallel tracks, without speaking too extensively to one another. In part, this is due to their roots in different disciplines: the top-down perspective has its origins in political science, whereas the bottom-up perspective comes out of personality and social psychology. Though the accounts of polarization offered by political scientists and psychologists are sometimes presented as antagonistic in their implications, they need not be. In this chapter, I review research aimed at integrating the top-down and bottom-up accounts of political differences in mass publics in an effort to develop a hybrid perspective on the bases of political polarization. Like the bottom-up psychological approach, the model I present argues that people are systematically attracted to different positions on the basis of individual differences in needs for security and certainty. However, like the top-down approach, it also contends that the tendency for those with different psychological dispositions to adopt polarized political preferences depends on exposure to elite political signals that provide information about the content and meaning of different ideological, partisan, and issue orientations—exposure which is likely to be more pronounced among politically-engaged citizens.</p>

Understanding and combating misperceived polarization

“…Concerns about political polarization and its negative effects on democracy and intergroup relations have increased among scholars, policy makers and the public alike over the past few years [1][2][3][4]. Yet despite this attention to polarization as a major contributor to modern political ills, a growing body of scientific work on 'false polarization' has simultaneously flourished, suggesting that the extent of polarization is largely a fiction of our minds [5][6][7][8].…”

Intraindividual Changes in Political Identity Strength (but not Direction) are Associated with Political Animosity in the United States and the Netherlands

“…In particular, we explore demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity, education) as potential moderators given the role that some demographic variables have shown in prior work on affective polarization (e.g., on education see Henry & Napier, 2017; on gender see Ondercin & Lizotte, 2020). We also explore politically relevant variables, including people's stances on political issues and political interest, both of which may affect affective polarization (e.g., Dias & Lelekes, in press;Federico, 2021;Banda & Kluverius, 2018).…”

Social and Economic Political Ideology Consistently Operate as Mutual Suppressors: Implications for Personality, Social, and Political Psychology

“…In contrast, some studies suggest roughly equivalent relationships between social and economic conservatism, on the one hand, and external criteria, on the other (Azevedo et al, 2019;Cornelis & Van Hiel, 2006;Everett, 2013;Sterling et al, 2016), especially in politically engaged samples. Thus, whether and to what extent social and economic ideology have common psychological underpinnings remains undetermined (Federico, 2020).…”