Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Media coverage of affective polarization—partisans disliking and distrusting out-partisans while liking and trusting in-partisans—is abundant, both creating and reflecting a belief among the public that partisans are more affectively polarized than they are. These trends suggest that affective polarization among partisans could be viewed as socially desirable, which may then shape partisans' expressed attitudes and behavior. To examine this, I run four original surveys and study two broad research questions: (1) Does this social desirability exist?; and (2) Can it influence partisans' expressed affective polarization? I find that affective polarization among partisans is indeed socially desirable and that, largely motivated by self-presentation desires, this social desirability can shape partisans' expressed affective polarization. However, my results also suggest that affective polarization responses are rather ingrained in partisans, and that while partisans are aware of this social desirability and its effect on their behavior, small changes in survey context do not necessarily produce large changes in affective polarization responses. Overall, the results offer necessary nuance to our understanding of affective polarization, implying that social desirability—which can be shifted by contexts—can alter how affectively polarized people act.

ABSTRACTRecent analyses of American politics often invoke the term "culture war" depicting sharp and increasing divisions within the American polity. Most of this research defines culture in terms of values and beliefs about social issues and defines polarization in terms of partisan and issue divisions. I evaluate the claim of worsening "culture wars" by using a conceptualization of political culture that focuses on social groups and measuring polarization as both social group members' attitudes toward their own social in-groups and out-groups, and the effects of group attitudes on partisanship. Analyzing inter-group attitudes from 1964 to 2012 for social group cleavages defined by race, class, age, sex, and religion shows that polarization in attitudes toward social groups is minimal and generally stable, and most group members feel positively toward out-groups. Partisan and issue polarization seen in prior research do not extend to deep or increasing inter-group hostility that could reinforce issue-based and partisan polarization.