Off Sides
America’s Liberal Social Climate and Trends: Change in 283 General Social Survey Variables between and within US Birth Cohorts, 1972–2018
Michael Hout
Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 2021, Pages 1009-1049
Abstract:
The late James A. Davis characterized American public opinion in the Reagan era as “conservative weather” amidst a liberalizing “climate.” By climate, he meant differences between cohorts, while the weather referred to trends within cohorts. Thirty years later, the public opinion climate continues to get more liberal, as each successive cohort continues to be more liberal, on balance, than the ones that came before them. Recent weather complements that by being quite liberal, too. Specifically, 62 percent of variables analyzed were more liberal in recent birth cohorts than they were in the oldest ones, but just 5 percent were more conservative (some did not differ among cohorts, and some were neither liberal nor conservative). Within cohorts, recent measurements were more liberal than early measurements for 51 percent of the variables and more conservative for 11 percent.
Three Dimensions of American Conservative Political Orientation Differentially Predict Negativity Bias and Satisfaction With Life
Xiaowen Xu, Caitlin Burton & Jason Plaks Social
Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Numerous studies have linked political conservatism with negativity bias, whereas others have linked conservatism with indicators of positive adjustment. This research sought to reconcile this seeming contradiction by examining whether distinct dimensions of conservatism differentially predicted measures of negativity bias and positive adjustment. In two studies, we used an empirically derived and validated Attitude-Based Political Conservatism (ABPC) Scale that captures three correlated but distinct factors of American conservatism: Libertarian Independence, Moral Traditionalism, and Ethnic Separateness. In both studies (N = 1,756), Libertarian Independence was linked with indicators of positive adjustment, whereas Moral Traditionalism and Ethnic Separateness were linked with indices of negativity bias. By identifying which dimensions of conservatism predict negativity bias and positive adjustment, this work illuminates the unique psychological foundations of distinct strands of conservatism in America.
Current Research Overstates American Support for Political Violence
Sean Westwood et al.
Dartmouth College Working Paper, February 2022
Abstract:
Political scientists, pundits, and citizens worry that America is entering a new period of violent partisan conflict. Provocative survey data show that a large share of Americans (between 8% and 40%) support politically motivated violence. Yet, despite media attention, political violence is rare, amounting to a little more than 1% of violent hate crimes in the United States. We reconcile these seemingly conflicting facts with four large survey experiments (N=4,904), demonstrating that self-reported attitudes on political violence are biased upwards because of respondent disengagement and survey questions that allow multiple interpretations of political violence. Addressing question wording and respondent disengagement, we find that the median of existing estimates of support for partisan violence is nearly 6 times larger than the median of our estimates (18.5% versus 2.9%). Critically, we show the prior estimates overstate support for political violence because of random responding by disengaged respondents. Partial identification bounds imply that, under generous assumptions, sup-port for violence among engaged and disengaged respondents is at most 6.86%. Respondent disengagement also inflates the relationship between support for violence and previously identified correlates by a factor of 4. Finally, nearly all respondents support criminally charging suspects who commit acts of political violence. These findings suggest that although recent acts of political violence dominate the news, they do not portend a new era of violent conflict.
The partisan trade-off bias: When political polarization meets policy trade-offs
Daniela Goya-Tocchetto et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2022
Abstract:
Liberals and conservatives currently struggle to reach political agreement on policy proposals. While political polarization is closely associated with this phenomenon, the precise psychological mechanisms via which polarization works to affect political compromise remain to be fully explored. Across five studies (N = 1236; 2126 total individual observations), we uncover one such mechanism by exploring a novel and robust bias that emerges at the crossroads of policy trade-offs and partisanship. We call it the Partisan Trade-off Bias. When interpreting policy trade-offs, both Democrats and Republicans view the unintended but unavoidable side effects of policies proposed by contrapartisans as wanted and intended. Yet they do not attribute intentionality to the very same types of side effects of policies proposed by copartisans. We provide evidence for this bias across four types of policy trade-offs, including taxes, environmental regulation, gun control, and voting rights. Importantly, we show that the partisan trade-off bias is a unique contributor to decreased willingness to accept policy deals from contrapartisans, thus reducing the chances of reaching political agreement. Our studies suggest that the partisan trade-off bias is a product of the lack of trust in contrapartisans. In an experimental study, we manipulate trust and decrease the magnitude of this bias, showing evidence for our proposed mechanism and revealing a potential intervention to foster political compromise.
Specialized Learning and Political Polarization
Sevgi Yuksel
International Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
When citizens are differentiated by how much they care about different issues informing policy, specialization allows them to concentrate their learning on the issues that are most important to them. However, as different citizens focus on different issues, the electorate becomes less responsive to party platforms. In particular, equilibrium policies polarize more in fractionalized societies in which there is greater disagreement about which issues matter the most. When the learning technology allows for more specialization, it effectively transforms the society into a more fractionalized one without changing the underlying preferences of the electorate, thereby increasing polarization.
Are the U.S. Military’s Nonpartisan Norms Eroding?
Trent Lythgoe
Armed Forces & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
The U.S. military’s nonpartisan norms are an important part of healthy civil–military relations. Some research, however, suggest these norms are weakening. This study examines the evidence for eroding nonpartisan norms by analyzing U.S. military servicemembers’ partisan affiliations and political activism levels from 2008 to 2018. It finds that since 2008, military servicemembers have become more likely to identify as partisans. Servicemembers have also become more politically active than civilians, although this is due to decreasing activism among the American public. It also finds that longer-serving service members have stronger nonpartisan norms, but that newer servicemembers are more politically active than both longer-serving servicemembers and civilians. These findings provide a firmer empirical foundation for previous claims of eroding norms and suggest more research is needed to understand how increased partisanship and political activism impacts military readiness and civil–military relations.
Do people demand fact-checked news? Evidence from U.S. Democrats
Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth
Journal of Public Economics, January 2022
Abstract:
In a large-scale online experiment with U.S. Democrats, we examine how the demand for a newsletter about an economic relief plan changes when the newsletter content is fact-checked. We first document an overall muted demand for fact-checking when the newsletter features stories from an ideologically aligned source, even though fact-checking increases the perceived accuracy of the newsletter. The average impact of fact-checking masks substantial heterogeneity by ideology: fact-checking reduces demand among Democrats with strong ideological views and increases demand among ideologically moderate Democrats. Furthermore, fact-checking increases demand among all Democrats when the newsletter features stories from an ideologically non-aligned source.
E pluribus unum? Political fractionalization and deviations from the law of one price in the USA
Massimo Antonini, David Fielding & Jacinta Pires
Oxford Economic Papers, January 2022, Pages 194–214
Abstract:
The magnitude of deviations from the Law of One Price (LOP) across cities depends on a number of characteristics, including language differences, distance, and other correlates of trade costs. We show that in the USA, political differences between cities are an equally important determinant of LOP deviations. LOP deviations are smaller if the cities are both strongly Democrat or both strongly Republican. These effects are of a similar order of magnitude to those of distance, and suggest that political differences represent a substantial barrier to competition.
Moving political opponents closer: How kama muta can contribute to reducing the partisan divide in the US
Johanna Blomster Lyshol et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Dislike of political opponents has increased over the past years in the US. This paper presents a preregistered study investigating the effect of kama muta (being moved by sudden closeness) on increasing warmth, social closeness, and trust toward political opponents through including them in a common American identity. Eight hundred forty-one U.S. Americans watched either a moving or a neutral video about the US or a different theme in a full-factorial design. We found main effects of emotion and theme on the increase of warmth, social closeness, and trust toward political opponents through viewing them as fellow Americans. Accordingly, the linear combination of moving U.S. videos showed the largest increase in warmth, social closeness, and trust. Exploratory analyses showed that moving U.S.-themed videos evoked the most kama muta from suddenly increasing one’s identification with the US. This suggests that kama muta is an important, and heretofore largely overlooked, emotional process promoting common in-group identification.
The Effects of Politician’s Moral Violations on Voters' Moral Emotions
Annemarie Walter & David Redlawsk
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Existing empirical research on voters’ responses to individual politicians’ moral transgressions pays limited attention to moral emotions, although moral emotions are an integral part of voters’ moral judgment. This study looks at U.S. voters’ discrete moral emotional responses to politician’s moral violations and examines how these discrete moral emotional responses are dependent on voters’ own moral principles and the extent to which they identify with a political party. We report on a 5 × 3 between-subjects experiment where 2026 U.S. respondents reacted to politicians’ violations of one of five moral foundations defined by Moral Foundations Theory. We randomly vary which moral foundation is violated and the partisanship of the politician. While voters’ own moral principles somewhat condition moral emotional responses, we find that voters’ moral emotional responses mostly depend on partisan identification. When voters share party identity with a politician committing a moral violation, they respond with less anger, contempt, disgust and shame than when they do not share party identity. The effect is greater among strong partisans. However, we find limited evidence that specific moral emotions are activated by violations of particular moral foundations, thereby challenging Moral Foundations Theory.
Political ideology moderates White Americans’ reactions to racial demographic change
Xanni Brown, Julian Rucker & Jennifer Richeson
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
An emerging body of research finds that exposure to the shifting racial demographics of a nation can engender concerns about racial group status among members of the dominant racial group. The present work revisits this finding, probing a broader set of group status concerns than has been examined in most past research. Three experiments exposed four samples of White Americans to racial demographic information or race-neutral control information, then assessed their perception that the relative status of racial groups in the nation would change and the extent to which they were alarmed by such a status shift — that is, status threat. Consistent with past work, what we now term perceived status change increased in response to salient racial demographics information, relative to race-neutral control information, irrespective of participants’ political ideology. Departing from past work, however, the perceived threat associated with changing racial demographics was moderated by political ideology. Specifically, politically conservative White participants demonstrated high levels of group status threat in the neutral control condition that either increased (Study 1a, Study 2) or stayed equally high (Study 1b, Study 3) after exposure to information about a racial shift. In contrast, in all studies, politically liberal White participants demonstrated a modest level of group status threat in the control condition that was attenuated upon exposure to a racial shift. Taken together, these results suggest a polarization of responses to the increasing racial diversity of the nation, one that was not observed even just a few years ago.