Divided against itself
The Liberal Illusion of Uniqueness
Chadly Stern, Tessa West & Peter Schmitt
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In two studies, we demonstrated that liberals underestimate their similarity to other liberals (i.e., display truly false uniqueness), whereas moderates and conservatives overestimate their similarity to other moderates and conservatives (i.e., display truly false consensus; Studies 1 and 2). We further demonstrated that a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives in the motivation to feel unique explains this ideological distinction in the accuracy of estimating similarity (Study 2). Implications of the accuracy of consensus estimates for mobilizing liberal and conservative political movements are discussed.
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Electoral Choice, Ideological Conflict, and Political Participation
Jon Rogowski
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Generations of democratic theorists argue that democratic systems should present citizens with clear and distinct electoral choices. Responsible party theorists further argued that political participation increases with greater ideological conflict between competing electoral options. Empirical evidence on this question, however, remains deeply ambiguous. This article introduces new joint estimates of citizen preferences and the campaign platforms chosen by pairs of candidates in U.S. House and Senate races. The results show that increasing levels of ideological conflict reduce voter turnout, and are robust across a wide range of empirical specifications. Furthermore, the findings provide no support for existing accounts that emphasize how ideology or partisanship explains the relationship between ideological conflict and turnout. Instead, I find that increasing levels of candidate divergence reduce turnout primarily among citizens with lower levels of political sophistication. These findings provide the strongest evidence to date for how mass political behavior is conditioned by electoral choice.
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Ideological Change and the Economics of Voting Behavior in the US, 1920-2008
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper tests the proposition that voters advance a more liberal agenda in prosperous times and turn more conservative in dire economic times. A reference-dependent utility model suggests that, with income growth, the relative demand for public goods increases and the median voter is more likely to vote Democrat. With slowing income growth, the median voter derives increased marginal utility from personal income — making taxation more painful — and is more likely to vote Republican. Ordinary and instrumented analyses of a new time series for the US median voter are encouraging of this income growth model. This work links voting behavior to economic business cycles and shows that ideological change is endogenous to income growth rates.
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Scott Carter et al.
Social Science Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research shows that individuals living in the southern part of the United States express more negative racial attitudes than those living outside the South. Using data from The American National Election Study (NES), the purpose of this paper is to assess whether key factors often associated with the Southern attitude distinction are indeed more potent in the South than elsewhere. Drawing data from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, we further assess whether the impact of the South has increased or decreased over time. Results indicate that the impact of the South is negligible at best. Findings do show that place does matter for conservatives. However, in this case, non-South location matters more than the South. Relative to their liberal counterparts, conservatives in the non-South espouse more individualistic beliefs than do their Southern counterparts. These findings are discussed within the dominant theoretical framework in this area.
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Jesse Sussell
PS: Political Science & Politics, October 2013, Pages 768-773
Abstract:
This article empirically examines the “Big Sort hypothesis” — the notion that, in recent years, liberal and conservative Americans have become increasingly spatially isolated from one another. Using block group-, tract-, and county-level party registration data and presidential election returns, I construct two formal indices of segregation for 1992–2010 in California and evaluate those indices for evidence of growth in the segregation of Californians along ideological lines. Evidence of rising geographic segregation between Democrats and Republicans for measures generated from both party registration and presidential vote data is found. This growth is statistically significant for 10 of the 12 segregation measures analyzed. In addition, many of the increases are practically significant, with estimates of growth in segregation during the observation period ranging from 2% to 23%.
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How Ideological Migration Geographically Segregates Groups
Matt Motyl et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2014, Pages 1–14
Abstract:
Here, we advance the ideological migration hypothesis — individuals choose to live in communities with ideologies similar to their own to satisfy their need to belong. In Study 1, incongruity between personal and community ideology predicted greater residential mobility and attraction to more ideologically-congruent communities. In Study 2, participants who perceived their ideology to be at odds with their community’s displayed a decreased sense of belonging and an increased desire to migrate. In Studies 3 and 4, participants induced to view their current community as growing more incongruent with their own ideology expressed a decreased sense of belonging and an increased desire to migrate. Ideological migration may contribute to the rise in cultural, moral, and ideological segregation and polarization of the American electorate.
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Policy Information and the Polarization of American Social Policy Preferences
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez & Jeffrey Wenger
University of Georgia Working Paper, October 2013
Abstract:
A burgeoning literature has found that “submerged” social policies – those delivered through non-state actors or the tax code – are less visible to citizens, meaning that citizens are less capable of forming informed preferences about those policies. But even non-submerged policies provided directly by the state can be highly complex. In these cases, how does the provision of policy-specific information change individuals’ opinions about the social program? We examine how the provision of information about the rules governing unemployment insurance affects individuals’ preferences for, and perceptions of, unemployment insurance benefits using a survey experiment. We find that policy-specific information produces a moderating effect on individuals’ opinions, making conservatives more likely to hold more liberal attitudes about program features and beneficiaries while making liberals hold more conservative attitudes. Our results are strongest for those individuals who were less knowledgeable about the program before our experiment. We thus argue that the polarization of public opinion regarding social programs like unemployment insurance is shaped, in part, by the availability of policy-specific information disseminated by the state and other actors, such as interest groups and the media.
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Paul Thibodeau et al.
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do biases affect political information processing? A variant of the Wason selection task, which tests for confirmation bias, was used to characterize how the dynamics of the recent U.S. presidential election affected how people reasoned about political information. Participants were asked to evaluate pundit-style conditional claims like “The incumbent always wins in a year when unemployment drops” either immediately before or immediately after the 2012 presidential election. A three-way interaction between ideology, predicted winner (whether the proposition predicted that Obama or Romney would win), and the time of test indicated complex effects of bias on reasoning. Before the election, there was partial evidence of motivated reasoning — liberals performed especially well at looking for falsifying information when the pundit's claim predicted Romney would win. After the election, once the outcome was known, there was evidence of a belief bias — people sought to falsify claims that were inconsistent with the real-world outcome rather than their ideology. These results suggest that people seek to implicitly regulate emotion when reasoning about political predictions. Before elections, people like to think their preferred candidate will win. After elections, people like to think the winner was inevitable all along.
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The Electoral Roots of America's Dysfunctional Government
Alan Abramowitz
Presidential Studies Quarterly, December 2013, Pages 709–731
Abstract:
Since the 2010 midterm election, a combination of ideologically polarized parties and divided government has resulted in gridlock in Washington. Neither party can implement its own policy agenda, but bipartisan compromise appears to be almost impossible to achieve. In this article, I present evidence that the deep ideological divide between the parties in Washington is itself rooted in divisions that have been developing in American society for decades. Democratic and Republican voters are much more divided along geographic, racial, cultural, and ideological lines than in the past. Polarization in Washington reflects polarization within the American electorate. The result has been gridlock in Washington along with increasing divergence of social and economic policies at the state level with red states and blue states moving in opposing directions. I argue that the only way to end gridlock in Washington is party democracy, which would require, at a minimum, ending the Senate filibuster but, ideally, major constitutional reforms such as eliminating midterm elections.
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Brian Schaffner
PS: Political Science & Politics, October 2013, Pages 753-759
Abstract:
In 2010, a debate erupted about plans to construct a mosque (as part of a larger multicultural center) approximately two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. The main justification given by those who opposed the mosque was that building it so close to Ground Zero would appear to be insensitive. Public opinion appeared to support this notion, as large majorities of Americans registered their opposition to the mosque in surveys conducted at the time. In this article, I examine whether distance was, in fact, an important factor influencing citizens' opposition to the mosque. Using a survey experiment, I asked for opinions on the building of a mosque while randomizing how far the mosque was located from Ground Zero. Results from the experiment indicate that opposition to the mosque was unaffected by how far the mosque would be located from Ground Zero, but strongly influenced by factors such as partisanship, ideology, and tolerance for out groups.
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A Broken Public? Americans’ Responses to the Great Recession
Clem Brooks & Jeff Manza
American Sociological Review, October 2013, Pages 727-748
Abstract:
Did Americans respond to the recent Great Recession by demanding that government provide policy solutions to rising income insecurity, an expectation of state-of-the-art theorizing on the dynamics of mass opinion? Or did the recession erode support for government activism, in line with alternative scholarship pointing to economic factors having the reverse effect? We find that public support for government social programs declined sharply between 2008 and 2010, yet both fixed-effects and repeated survey analyses suggest economic change had little impact on policy-attitude formation. What accounts for these surprising developments? We consider alternative microfoundations emphasizing the importance of prior beliefs and biases to the formation of policy attitudes. Analyzing the General Social Surveys panel, our results suggest political partisanship has been central. Gallup and Evaluations of Government and Society surveys provide further evidence against the potentially confounding scenario of government overreach, in which federal programs adopted during the recession and the Obama presidency propelled voters away from government. We note implications for theoretical models of opinion formation, as well as directions for partisanship scholarship and interdisciplinary research on the Great Recession.
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“What's the Matter With Kansas?” A Sociological Answer
Frank Young
Sociological Forum, December 2013, Pages 864–872
Abstract:
Thomas Frank's book poses a question: Why do working people in Kansas vote for Republican candidates when supporting them is antithetical to their economic interests? This article analyzes the statistical evidence for such alleged deviant voting and finds support for his thesis that the working class does vote Republican. Also supported is his principal causal suggestion for this hypothesized “backlash,” the decline in average county population. But both variables lack a supporting theory. A “structural ecological” explanation for both facts is introduced that claims that the fear that whites experience as the white population shrinks causes the backlash reaction and the Republican vote that Frank describes. Statistical tests support the alternative explanation and illustrate the difference between Frank's ethnography-based arguments and the approach that most sociologists use.
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System Justification and Electrophysiological Responses to Feedback: Support for a Positivity Bias
Shona Tritt et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Conservatives, compared to liberals, are consistently found to exhibit physiological sensitivity to aversive stimuli. However, it remains unknown whether conservatives are also sensitive to salient positively valenced stimuli. We therefore used event-related potentials to determine the relationship between system justification (SJ), a fundamental component of conservative political ideology, and neural processing of negative and positive feedback. Participants (N = 29) filled out questionnaire assessments of SJ. Feedback-related negativity (FRN), an event-related potential component thought to index activity in neural regions associated with reward processing, was assessed in response to positive and negative feedback on a time estimation task. A significant interaction was noted between SJ and feedback type in predicting FRN. Simple effects tests suggested that SJ predicted greater FRN in response to positive but not to negative feedback. Conservatives may experience salient positive information with a heightened intensity.
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The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science
Stephan Lewandowsky, Gilles Gignac & Klaus Oberauer
PLoS ONE, October 2013
Background: Among American Conservatives, but not Liberals, trust in science has been declining since the 1970's. Climate science has become particularly polarized, with Conservatives being more likely than Liberals to reject the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the globe. Conversely, opposition to genetically-modified (GM) foods and vaccinations is often ascribed to the political Left although reliable data are lacking. There are also growing indications that rejection of science is suffused by conspiracist ideation, that is the general tendency to endorse conspiracy theories including the specific beliefs that inconvenient scientific findings constitute a “hoax.”
Methodology/Principal findings: We conducted a propensity weighted internet-panel survey of the U.S. population and show that conservatism and free-market worldview strongly predict rejection of climate science, in contrast to their weaker and opposing effects on acceptance of vaccinations. The two worldview variables do not predict opposition to GM. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, predicts rejection of all three scientific propositions, albeit to greatly varying extents. Greater endorsement of a diverse set of conspiracy theories predicts opposition to GM foods, vaccinations, and climate science.
Conclusions: Free-market worldviews are an important predictor of the rejection of scientific findings that have potential regulatory implications, such as climate science, but not necessarily of other scientific issues. Conspiracist ideation, by contrast, is associated with the rejection of all scientific propositions tested. We highlight the manifold cognitive reasons why conspiracist ideation would stand in opposition to the scientific method. The involvement of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science has implications for science communicators.
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Extreme Voices: Interest Groups and the Misrepresentation of Issue Publics
Ryan Claassen & Stephen Nicholson
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies of issue publics suggest that widespread political ignorance does not matter because those affected by specific issues are involved and well informed, and can meaningfully shape policy in their policy area. However, research on civic participation raises important questions about whether the opinions of the active are representative of the less active. To examine whether meaningful differences in policy attitudes exist between the politically active and inactive within issue publics, we compare the policy attitudes of interest group members to nonmembers. Across ten interest groups we find uniformly consistent evidence of policy distinctiveness among group members and show that party identification and ideology largely account for the difference. We also find that the policy differences between members and nonmembers vary according to the primary incentive offered by an interest group. Groups primarily offering expressive benefits exhibit the greatest opinion differences within an issue public, whereas opinion differences are muted for groups emphasizing solidary or material incentives. Finally, we find evidence of attitude extremism among group members. Taken together, our study suggests that the voices of non-active citizens are not well represented within issue publics.
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Yariv Tsfati, Natalie Jomini Stroud & Adi Chotiner
International Journal of Press/Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Spiral-of-silence theory assumes that a monolithic stream of messages from mainstream media, leaving little ability for audiences to seek ideologically congruent news, affects people’s perceptions of the distribution of opinion in society. While these assumptions may have been valid when Noelle-Neumann developed her theory forty years ago, the new media landscape, characterized by the proliferation of ideological media outlets, makes them seem outdated. Do audiences of conservative-leaning media perceive a conservative opinion climate while audiences of liberal-leaning media perceive a more liberal distribution of opinion? And if so, what are the consequences? We examine these questions using two data sets collected in extremely different contexts (Study 1 in the context of the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, n = 519; Study 2, in the context of the 2004 U.S. presidential elections using the National Annenberg Election Survey, n = 9,058). In both studies, selective exposure to ideological media outlets was associated with opinion climate perceptions that were biased in the direction of the media outlets’ ideologies. In Study 2, we also demonstrated that partisan selective exposure indirectly contributes to political polarization, and that this effect is mediated by opinion climate perceptions.
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Further to the right: Uncertainty, political polarization and the American “Tea Party” movement
Amber Gaffney et al.
Social Influence, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Tea Party entered U.S. politics in a time of economic uncertainty, positioning itself far to the right of the conservative movement. Its highly conservative position has allowed it to provide a clear self-definition that contrasts with more moderate and liberal political views. To examine the Tea Party's influence on American political prototypes, we manipulated the comparative context in which participants received an extreme pro-normative message from a Tea Party group. Conservatives (N = 47), primed with self-uncertainty, supported the extreme position, indicating more conservative views for both themselves and similar others when primed with an intergroup versus an intragroup context. Results are discussed in terms of the ability for extreme ingroup factions to polarize prototypes under self-conceptual uncertainty.
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Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick & Benjamin Johnson
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
The role of selective exposure in the relationship between online news use and political participation is examined. American adults (N = 205) completed a 2-session online study that measured political interest and online news use, unobtrusively observed selective exposure, and finally measured political participation likelihood. Online news use and selective exposure to attitude-consistent information were modeled as sequential mediators between political interest and participation likelihood. While greater political interest increased both participation likelihood and online news use, online news use ultimately depressed participation likelihood by reducing selective exposure to attitude-consistent news. The findings demonstrate that selective exposure is a fundamental process that must be considered when testing the effect of Internet use on political participation.
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Moving Pictures? Experimental Evidence of Cinematic Influence on Political Attitudes
Todd Adkins & Jeremiah Castle
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objectives: Media effects research has generally ignored the possibility that popular films can affect political attitudes. This omission is puzzling for two reasons. First, research on public opinion finds the potential for persuasion is highest when respondents are unaware that political messages are being communicated. Second, multiple studies have found that entertainment media can alter public opinion. Together, this suggests that popular films containing political messages should possess the potential to influence attitudes.
Methods: We develop a laboratory experiment where subjects were randomly assigned to watch a control movie with no political messages, a movie with subtle political messages, or a movie with strong and explicit political messages.
Results: We find that popular movies possess the ability to change political attitudes, especially on issues that are unframed by the media. Furthermore, we show such influence persists over time and is not moderated by partisanship, ideology, or political knowledge.
Conclusions: Our key findings suggest that a renewed scholarly interest in the political influence of popular movies is clearly warranted.
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The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion
Toby Bolsen, James Druckman & Fay Lomax Cook
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Political parties play a vital role in democracies by linking citizens to their representatives. Nonetheless, a longstanding concern is that partisan identification slants decision-making. Citizens may support (oppose) policies that they would otherwise oppose (support) in the absence of an endorsement from a political party — this is due in large part to what is called partisan motivated reasoning where individuals interpret information through the lens of their party commitment. We explore partisan motivated reasoning in a survey experiment focusing on support for an energy law. We identify two politically relevant factors that condition partisan motivated reasoning: (1) an explicit inducement to form an “accurate” opinion, and (2) cross-partisan, but not consensus, bipartisan support for the law. We further provide evidence of how partisan motivated reasoning works psychologically and affects opinion strength. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for understanding opinion formation and the overall quality of citizens’ opinions.
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David Wilson & Paul Brewer
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Voter ID laws require individuals to show government-endorsed identification when casting their ballots on Election Day. Whereas some see these laws as necessary to prevent voting fraud, others argue that fraud is extremely rare and that voter ID laws can suppress voting. The relative newness of the laws, along with variance in their substance, suggests that the public may possess low information about voter ID laws; thus, opinions on the issue may be influenced by political information, group predispositions, and the media. Using data from a national poll (n = 906), this study investigates what underlies opinion on voter ID laws. The results indicate that political predispositions, including ideology, party identification, and racial attitudes, influence support for such laws. The results also yield evidence of several types of information effects. A question-wording experiment shows that exposure to an anti–voter ID law argument framing voter ID laws as preventing eligible people from voting reduced support, whereas other framing treatments (pro and con) had no discernible impact on opinion. A “polarization effect” emerges, with issue familiarity magnifying the gap in opinion between liberals and conservatives. Fox News viewers are particularly likely to support voter ID laws, though no other forms of media use are significantly related to support. Finally, perceptions of voting fraud as “common” are associated with support for voter ID laws.
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Emma Bäck
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, October 2013, Pages 2073–2082
Abstract:
Challengers, as opposed to defenders, of the status quo ascribe more negative motives for the attitudes of their opponents and more positive motives to their allies. This may be associated with a heightened social cost involved in challenging the generally considered good and true. Most social issues are associated with ideology, and conservatives display more prejudices than liberals. Hence, it is unclear whether ideology or position toward the status quo per se drives these attributions. In two studies, position showed to be a stronger predictor of biased intergroup perceptions than ideology. Both left- and right-wing affiliates displayed stronger biases when in opposition. This supports the notion that the challenging position per se, elicits group differentiation. Results are important for understanding of negative campaigning and political action.
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A method for computing political preference among Twitter followers
Jennifer Golbeck & Derek Hansen
Social Networks, January 2014, Pages 177–184
Abstract:
There is great interest in understanding media bias and political information seeking preferences. As many media outlets create online personas, we seek to automatically estimate the political preferences of their audience, rather than examining the bias of the media source. In this paper, we present a novel method for computing the political preferences of an organization's Twitter followers. We present an application of this technique to estimate the political preferences of the audiences of U.S. media outlets, government agencies, and interest groups and think tanks. We also discuss how these results may be used and extended.