Showdown
The Psychology of Online Political Hostility: A Comprehensive, Cross-National Test of the Mismatch Hypothesis
Alexander Bor & Michael Bang Petersen
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why are online discussions about politics more hostile than offline discussions? A popular answer argues that human psychology is tailored for face-to-face interaction and people's behavior therefore changes for the worse in impersonal online discussions. We provide a theoretical formalization and empirical test of this explanation: the mismatch hypothesis. We argue that mismatches between human psychology and novel features of online environments could (a) change people's behavior, (b) create adverse selection effects, and (c) bias people's perceptions. Across eight studies, leveraging cross-national surveys and behavioral experiments (total N = 8,434), we test the mismatch hypothesis but only find evidence for limited selection effects. Instead, hostile political discussions are the result of status-driven individuals who are drawn to politics and are equally hostile both online and offline. Finally, we offer initial evidence that online discussions feel more hostile, in part, because the behavior of such individuals is more visible online than offline.
Exposure to authoritarian values leads to lower positive affect, higher negative affect, and higher meaning in life
Jake Womick et al.
PLoS ONE, September 2021
Abstract:
Five studies tested the effect of exposure to authoritarian values on positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and meaning in life (MIL). Study 1 (N = 1,053) showed that simply completing a measure of right-wing authoritarianism (vs. not) prior to rating MIL led to higher MIL. Preregistered Study 2 (N = 1,904) showed that reading speeches by real-world authoritarians (e.g., Adolf Hitler) led to lower PA, higher NA, and higher MIL than a control passage. In preregistered Studies 3 (N = 1,573) and 4 (N = 1,512), Americans read authoritarian, egalitarian, or control messages and rated mood, MIL, and evaluated the passages. Both studies showed that egalitarian messages led to better mood and authoritarian messages led to higher MIL. Study 5 (N = 148) directly replicated these results with Canadians. Aggregating across studies (N = 3,401), moderational analyses showed that meaning in life, post manipulation, was associated with more favorable evaluations of the authoritarian passage. In addition, PA was a stronger predictor of MIL in the egalitarian and control conditions than in the authoritarian condition. Further results showed no evidence that negative mood (or disagreement) spurred the boost in MIL. Implications and future directions are discussed.
Hate and meaning in life: How collective, but not personal, hate quells threat and spurs meaning in life
Abdo Elnakouri, Candice Hubley & Ian McGregor
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Classic and contemporary perspectives link meaning in life to the pursuit of a significant purpose, free from incoherence. The typical assumption is that these meaningful purposes are prosocial, or at least benign. Here, we tested whether hate might also bolster meaning in life, via motivational states underlying significant purpose and coherence. In two studies (N = 847; Study 2 pre-registered), describing hatred (vs. mere dislike) towards collective entities (societal phenomena, institutions, groups), but not individuals, heightened feelings linked to the behavioral approach system (BAS; eagerness, determination, enthusiasm), which underlies a sense of significant purpose, and muted feelings linked to threat and the behavioral inhibition system (BIS; confused, uncertain, conflicted), which underlies a sense of incoherence. This high BAS and low BIS, in turn, predicted meaning in life beyond pre-manipulation levels. Exploratory analyses suggested that personal hatreds did not have the meaning-bolstering effects that collective hatreds had due to meaning-dampening negative feelings. Discussion focuses on motivation for collective and ideological hatreds in threatening circumstances.
Beyond doubt in a dangerous world: The effect of existential threats on the certitude of societal discourse
Almog Simchon et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
What happens when entire populations are exposed to news of impending existential threats? In the current study, we address this question by investigating the association between existential threats and the certitude of societal discourse. According to appraisal theory, threats give rise to anxiety and perceptions of uncertainty; as such, it predicts that exposure to life-threatening events will increase expressions of uncertainty. An alternative possibility is that people will respond to threats by utilizing psychological compensation mechanisms that will give rise to greater expressions of certainty. Across two studies, we measured linguistic certainty in more than 3.2 million tweets, covering different psychological contexts: (i) the 15 major terrorist and school shooting events that took place between 2016 and 2018; (ii) the COVID-19 pandemic. Consistent with the idea of compensatory processing, the results show that levels of expressed certainty increased following intentional and natural existential threats. We discuss the implications of our findings to theories of psychological compensation and to our understanding of collective response in the age of global threats.
Identity, Beliefs, and Political Conflict
Giampaolo Bonomi, Nicola Gennaioli & Guido Tabellini
Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We present a theory of identity politics that builds on two ideas. First, when policy conflict renders a certain social divide - economic or cultural - salient, a voter identifies with her economic or cultural group. Second, the voter slants her beliefs towards the stereotype of the group she identifies with. We obtain three implications. First, voters' beliefs are polarized along the distinctive features of salient groups. Second, if the salience of cultural policies increases, cultural conflict rises, redistributive conflict falls, and polarization becomes more correlated across issues. Third, economic shocks hurting conservative voters may trigger a switch to cultural identity, causing these voters to demand less redistribution. We discuss U.S. survey evidence in light of these implications.
Possible Evolutionary Origins of Nationalism
Satoshi Kanazawa
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do some individuals support nationalist policies while others don't? The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis in evolutionary psychology suggests that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values whereas less intelligent individuals may be more likely to hold evolutionarily familiar values. Nationalism is evolutionarily familiar, so the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis suggests that less intelligent individuals may be more likely to be nationalist. The analyses of the General Social Survey (GSS) data in the US and the National Child Development Study (NCDS) data in the UK confirmed the prediction. Less intelligent Americans were more likely to have nationalist attitudes, and less intelligent British voters were more likely to support nationalist parties in five general elections over three decades. The tendency of less intelligent individuals to be more nationalist and belligerent may, among other things, form the microfoundation of democratic peace in international relations.
"It was rigged": Different types of identification predict activism and radicalism in the U.S. 2020 election
Joseph Wagoner, Mark Rinella & Nicolas Barreto
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
What motivated Trump Supporters to storm the US Capitol in protest of the US Election results? We examined how different dimensions of an identification (Trump, Republican) predicted intentions to engage in activism or radicalism in the wake of the 2020 US Presidential Election. We sampled self-identified Republicans 3 weeks before (N = 273), and 10 days after (N = 277), the US Capitol Insurrection. We separately measured identification as a Republican and Trump Supporter before assessing people's perception that the 2020 Election was illegitimate. We then assessed two emotions (anger, contempt) and two forms of collective action intentions (activism, radicalism). Both studies showed that stronger Trump identification, but weaker Republican identification, predicted perceptions that the 2020 US Election was illegitimate. Perceptions of illegitimacy predicted feelings of anger and contempt, which differently predicted normative and nonnormative collective action. Results suggest that different dimensions of identification predispose people to different perceptions of events and, consequently, harbor different action intentions.
'Sort Selling': Political Polarization and Residential Relocation
Ben McCartney, John Orellana-Li & Calvin Zhang
Federal Reserve Working Paper, June 2021
Abstract:
Partisanship and political polarization are salient features of today's society. We build a data set that merges deeds records and voter rolls and design a novel, new-neighbor identification strategy to show that households are more likely to move away when their very nearest neighbors are affiliated with the opposite political party. This effect diminishes the farther away the neighbor lives, is strongest when the neighbor is highly partisan, and has grown larger over time. We reach two conclusions: Nearest neighbors, beyond their correlation with local amenities, affect residential relocation and political polarization is more than "political cheerleading."
Partisan Influence in Suspicious Times
Joshua Robison
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Parties can significantly influence their supporter's policy views via endorsement cues raising worries about manipulation of mass opinion. We bring attention to a novel constraint on party influence: information implying that the party adopted its position due to the lobbying efforts of interest groups and campaign donors. Party cue taking is significantly reduced across three survey experiment when this type of information is presented alongside a party endorsement cue. This attenuation in cue taking occurred both when the party adopted a stereotypical as well as a counter-stereotypical policy position and both when ideologically aligned and non-aligned groups were the source of lobbyist influence. Moreover, partisans were less likely to follow the party line even though they still believed the party's policy arguments to be superior to opposing arguments and that the policy would yield positive outcomes. Our results suggest a novel and common limit on partisan influence.
Negative and positive partisans' responses to the 2020 presidential election
Jessica Salvatore et al.
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the wake of past U.S. Presidential elections, voters supporting the losing side have shown a social pain response. In this paper we demonstrate that these findings held again in the 2020 election, helping to confirm that it is the voting experience itself that matters (since the 2020 losing-side voters were winning-side voters in the previous election). In prior elections, this pattern was most evident among strong positive partisans; we report mixed support for this in the 2020 election. Using a new graphical measure of negative partisanship, we were able to compare the experiences of negative versus positive partisans. Strong negative partisanship appears to act as a 'hedge' by buffering voters who wind up on the losing side of an election from social pain.
Reconsidering the Link Between Self-Reported Personality Traits and Political Preferences
Bert Bakker, Yphtach Lelkes & Ariel Malka
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on personality and political preferences generally assumes unidirectional causal influence of the former on the latter. However, there are reasons to believe that citizens might adopt what they perceive as politically congruent psychological attributes, or at least be motivated to view themselves as having these attributes. We test this hypothesis in a series of studies. Results of preregistered panel analyses in three countries suggest reciprocal causal influences between self-reported personality traits and political preferences. In two two-wave survey experiments, a subtle political prime at the beginning of a survey resulted in self-reported personality traits that were more aligned with political preferences gauged in a previous assessment. We discuss how concurrent assessment within the context of a political survey might overestimate the causal influence of personality traits on political preferences and how political polarization might be exacerbated by political opponents adopting different personality characteristics or self-perceptions thereof.
Personalizing Moral Reframing in Interpersonal Conversation: A Field Experiment
Joshua Kalla, Adam Levine & David Broockman
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Organizations in the contemporary United States face substantial challenges with persuading citizens and moving them to take action. Prior research finds that citizens' views can be changed and strengthened using frames consistent with their moral values. However, it can be difficult for organizations to tailor their appeals to individuals' moral values given the difficulty in predicting which moral values matter to which citizens. We present a pre-registered field experiment in which canvassers for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (n = 52) sought to overcome this challenge by listening for individual voters' (n = 1, 034) moral values and then tailoring their appeals to those moral values. In contrast to an earlier study finding no impact of long-form canvassing on abortion attitudes, we find these conversations had large effects on interest in taking action and some evidence of changes in policy attitudes. This experiment provides a template for practitioners and researchers to build on.
Tabloid Media Campaigns and Public Opinion: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on Euroscepticism in England
Florian Foos & Daniel Bischof
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Whether powerful media outlets have effects on public opinion has been at the heart of theoretical and empirical discussions about the media's role in political life. Yet, the effects of media campaigns are difficult to study because citizens self-select into media consumption. Using a quasi-experiment -- the 30-year boycott of the most important Eurosceptic tabloid newspaper, The Sun, in Merseyside caused by the Hillsborough soccer disaster -- we identify the effects of The Sun boycott on attitudes toward leaving the EU. Difference-in-differences designs using public opinion data spanning three decades, supplemented by referendum results, show that the boycott caused EU attitudes to become more positive in treated areas. This effect is driven by cohorts socialized under the boycott and by working-class voters who stopped reading The Sun. Our findings have implications for our understanding of public opinion, media influence, and ways to counter such influence in contemporary democracies.
Testosterone fluctuations in response to a democratic election predict partisan attitudes toward the elected leader
Smrithi Prasad et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Intergroup competitions such as democratic elections can intensify intergroup polarization and conflict. Partisan attitudes toward the elected leader can also shift from before to after an election, but the biology underlying these attitudinal shifts remains largely unknown. An important factor could be the hormone testosterone, which is theorized to fluctuate during competition and to influence status seeking. In a naturalistic study of 113 registered voters, we measured changes in testosterone levels and attitudes toward the winner of the 2012 US Presidential Election. We found that supporters of the losing candidate (Romney) showed acute increases in testosterone levels compared to supporters of the winner (Obama) on the evening of Election Day. Supporters of the losing candidate also demonstrated flatter diurnal testosterone slopes on Election Day that persisted up to two days after the election. Furthermore, greater increases in acute testosterone levels and flatter diurnal slopes among supporters of the losing candidate were associated with less positive evaluations of the winning candidate. These testosterone-moderated attitudinal shifts observed in the days after the election showed a directionally similar pattern with a weaker effect size six months later. Finally, we confirmed that the main results were robust to alternative data analytic choices using multiverse specification curve analysis. The findings from this paper suggest that hormonal responses to large-scale intergroup competitions may shape how we perceive our elected leaders, shedding light on the biology of intergroup relations.