Party Knowledge
The Role of Political Partisanship and Moral Beliefs in Leadership Selection
Harrison Miller et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
What roles do political partisanship and moral beliefs play in people's support for particular leaders? The current studies suggest that people with politically conservative views may support dominant leaders (those who use assertiveness, formal authority, and intimidation to influence others) because such leaders are viewed as likely to share conservatives' moral priorities. Compared to liberals, conservatives reported higher prioritization of group-binding moral foundations. Those moral priorities, in turn, statistically mediated conservatives' support for dominant leaders. Compared to conservatives, liberals reported higher prioritization of individualizing moral foundations, as well as deprioritization of group-binding moral foundations. Those moral priorities, in turn, statistically mediated liberals' support for prestige-based leaders (those relying on knowledge, skill, and freely conferred deference to influence others). The current work provides new insight into how people's moral priorities may underlie their preference for particular types of leaders.
The Cultural Origins of Populism
Yotam Margalit, Shir Raviv & Omer Solodoch
Journal of Politics, April 2025, Pages 393-410
Abstract:
The electoral success of right-wing populist parties is often attributed to disaffection among certain voters. But while economic explanations for this disaffection are theoretically clear and quantifiable, explanations centered on cultural factors offer accounts that are more vague and harder to evaluate empirically. We address this problem by distinguishing theoretically between five different "storylines" about the cultural origins of populism and then test them using extensive data from Europe and the United States. Our analysis indicates that concerns about ethnocultural change induced by immigration are central to understanding the populist vote; so is rural resentment and status anxiety, but to a lesser extent. In contrast, explanations centered on community disintegration or an intergenerational values divide are pertinent in only specific cases. The analysis helps disentangle the cultural forces associated with the rise of populism and highlights the heterogeneous coalitions that form the populist base across different countries.
Do people prefer to share political information that boosts their ingroup or derogates the outgroup?
Jakob Kasper & Thomas Gilovich
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent analyses of social media activity indicate that outgroup animosity drives user engagement more than ingroup favoritism, with content that derogates the outgroup tending to generate more viral responses online. However, it is unclear whether those findings are due to most people's underlying preferences or structural features of the social media landscape. To address this uncertainty, we conducted three experimental studies (N-overall = 609) to examine how intended impact (ingroup favoritism/outgroup derogation) influences intentions to share both true and false news posts among U.S. partisans who regularly use social media. Participants consistently preferred to share posts that favor their own party over those that denigrate the opposition -- a preference that was largely maintained despite a manipulation of ingroup threat or a manipulated desire to share viral content in Studies 2 and 3. We discuss the influence of polarized politicians and their followers, malign actors, and social media algorithms as potential drivers of earlier results that highlight the virality of derogatory content.
Blame Attribution, Partisanship, and Federalism: Evidence from a Panel Survey
Matthew Uttermark et al.
Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 2024, Pages 1296-1308
Abstract:
When disaster strikes in federal systems, who do citizens blame and why? Partisan blame attribution (PBA) suggests that Republicans and Democrats hold consistent ideological preferences on which level of government should respond and receive blame for policy failures in times of crisis. Conversely, partisan federalism (PF) suggests that partisans will opportunistically assign blame to the level of government controlled by their disfavored party. Research on blame attribution has yet to assess which mechanism better explains patterns of blame attribution among individuals. We test each mechanism to evaluate patterns of blame attribution related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging panel survey data collected before the 2020 election and after the 2021 presidential transition, we find that Democrats uniformly follow PF expectations, whereas Republicans follow both PBA and PF expectations. We conclude that scholars should revisit blame attribution and more carefully consider the role of federalism in determining citizen preferences.
The Impact of Values on Issue Stances: Evidence from Panel Studies
Arjun Vishwanath
British Journal of Political Science, March 2025
Abstract:
Which predispositions drive voters' policy attitudes? This article tests the role of political values as a driver of attitudes relative to two commonly posited sources - partisanship and symbolic ideology. Past work has found correlations between values and issue attitudes, but these cross-sectional studies have limited causal purchases. I test the effects of traditionalist and egalitarian values on issue stances using six ANES and GSS panel surveys from 1992 to 2020. I find that values drive within-voter changes in policy attitudes under a variety of specifications. Additionally, values shape attitudes on emergent policies, which I test using the cases of welfare reform in the 1990s and transgender policies in the 2010s. In all models, values have as large or larger effects on attitudes as that of partisanship or ideology. I conclude that values are a core predisposition which voters employ to make sense of policy issues.
Is It Still the Economy? Economic Voting in Polarized Politics
Thiago Moreira
British Journal of Political Science, March 2025
Abstract:
How does polarized politics affect electoral accountability? In this paper, I investigate the impact of political polarization on two channels through which voters can sanction incumbents for poor policy outcomes: voting for the opposition and abstaining. Using presidential election results at the county level, I show that, under polarized environments, the number of voters punishing the incumbent party for poor economic performances decreases in both channels. Survey analyses confirm that as the perceived ideological distance between parties increases, partisans are less likely to (i) negatively evaluate the economy when their party holds the Presidency and (ii) among those who have a negative view of the economy, they are less likely to penalize their party for negative economic assessments. These results show that polarization affects economic evaluation and clouds the responsibility for economic conditions, decreasing voters' willingness to sanction the incumbent party.
A Convergence of Crises: Sudden Employment Loss and Black Lives Matter Protest Attendance during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Katy Habr & Hannah Pullen-Blasnik
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, April 2025
Abstract:
The Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd's murder during the summer of 2020 demonstrated an unprecedented scale of mobilization against police violence. This mobilization has been theorized as a response to the "triple crisis" of police brutality, coronavirus disease 2019, and its resulting economic downturn. The authors provide an analysis of the triple-crisis theory by analyzing how the rapid health crisis and economic recession related to protest participation. They collect data on protest attendance and sudden employment loss in 491 commuting zones in the United States and find that employment loss is positively and significantly associated with greater rates of Black Lives Matter protest attendance. This relationship is not observed for other protests during the pandemic, indicating a specific relationship between police brutality and economic shock rather than a general moment of heightened contention. These findings expand the social movement literature on contemporary protests, examining interconnections between systems of injustice across issue areas.
Targeted Abortion Frames Do Not Mobilize Political Action-Taking
Natalie Hernandez, Nicholas Ottone & Joshua Kalla
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
With the advent of Big Data, political organizations are increasingly able to target messages by demographic information. Past research has found mixed results whether targeted frames are more effective in persuading participants than standard, broad-based frames. In this paper, we study the efficacy of targeted appeals in mobilizing likely supporters to take action on abortion rights. In a departure from past research, we focus our efforts on mobilization (rather than persuasion) and identity-based appeals (rather than policy preference-based appeals). We first collect real-world evidence through elite interviews that practitioners in the space actually use targeted appeals to garner support. We then partner with a political organization to conduct an online field experiment using targeted frames. Finally, we conduct two survey experiments to test the efficacy of targeted frames in a controlled setting. We find that targeted mobilization appeals are no more effective than standard appeals in mobilizing existing supporters to take action on behalf of abortion rights. We do not find evidence of a demobilizing effect when frames are mis-targeted. Our findings suggest that organizations can innovate their messaging to target new groups without alienating core supporters.
Peer Networks and Ideological Consistency: How Student Communities Facilitate Belief Liberalization in Higher Education
Craig Rawlings, Erin Johnston & David Eagle
American Journal of Sociology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do students in higher education tend to become more liberal? The authors outline a model of belief change wherein cognitive motivations for ideological consistency interact with social factors in peer networks to influence how students in higher education engage with social change, often resulting in a shift toward more liberal views. Hypotheses derived from this framework are tested using longitudinal data on two cohorts of divinity school students during a time of intense debate over the morality of same-sex relationships and ordaining gay clergy. Connecting individual-level belief change data with structural data from peer networks and in-depth interviews shows that student communities, beyond faculty and curricular influences, significantly shape belief liberalization. The authors discuss the implications and possible scope conditions for student liberalization and belief change.
I love you, but I have got to cancel you: Psychological consequences of participation in cancel culture
Rebecca Tukachinsky Forster & Daniel Spitz
Psychology of Popular Media, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study explores how individuals react to celebrities who take a political stance that contradicts and threatens their social identity. An online experiment examines these questions in the context of the Israeli war against Hamas in the wake of the October 7 terror attack. Israeli Jewish participants who were led to believe that a beloved celebrity fully embraced the Palestinian's narrative and condemned Israel experienced more negative and less positive emotions and had a greater intention to cancel the celebrity. However, writing a comment or a social media post (particularly if the comment bashed the celebrity) partially buffered these emotional effects. Effects were moderated by the intensity of the media user's parasocial relationship with the celebrity and the strength of their identification with Israel. The findings offer a unique perspective on why, under certain circumstances, engaging in toxic cancel culture behaviors can be experienced as psychologically rewarding in the short term.