Toeing the Line
When Do Partisans Stop Following the Leader?
Alexander Agadjanian
Political Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
Evidence of public opinion blindly following political leader rhetoric has important implications for the scope of elite influence and normative democratic concerns. Past research, however, does not test the strength of real world leader cues amid signals that conflict with a leader’s policy message, and thus has not gauged the robustness of the “follow-the-leader” dynamic. The current study explores whether two different conflicting signals – 1) opposing intra-party Congressional elite cues and 2) negative policy information that gives compelling reasons to oppose a policy – attenuate leader influence in support of a realistic counter-stereotypical policy. A national survey experiment with two parallel partisan designs shows that individuals follow their leader to a substantial degree whether or not conflicting signals are present. Conflicting co-party elite cues do not attenuate leader influence among Republicans. For Democrats, although they weaken amid opposition, leader cues still shape mass opinion sizably. Providing substantially more information about the policy at hand does not make either partisan group much less likely to follow their leader, a finding that holds regardless of individuals’ preexisting ideology in the policy area. Results demonstrate the broad conditions under which “follow-the-leader” behavior holds and reveal a stronger nature of elite influence than previously understood. Party elites and information fail to effectively constrain the sway of prominent leaders, who have considerable latitude in positions they can take without losing mass support.
Resistance in repressive contexts: A comprehensive test of psychological predictors
Arin Ayanian et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Empirical research on the social psychological antecedents of collective action has been conducted almost exclusively in democratic societies, where activism is relatively safe. The present research examines the psychological predictors of collective action intentions in contexts where resistance is met with significant repression by the authorities. Combining recent advancements in the collective action literature, our model examines the unique predictive roles of emotion (anger and fear), political identity consolidation and participative efficacies, politicized identification, and moral obligation, over and above past participation. It further investigates how these variables are shaped by perceptions of risks attributable to repression. Four survey studies test this model among protesters in Russia (N = 305), Ukraine (N = 136), Hong Kong (N = 115), and Turkey (N = 296). Meta-analytic integration of the findings highlights that, unlike in most current accounts of collective action, protesters in these contexts are not primarily driven by political efficacy. Rather, their involvement is contingent upon beliefs in the ability of protest to build a movement (identity consolidation and participative efficacies) and motivated by outrage at state repression, identification with the social movement, and a sense of moral obligation to act on their behalf. Results also confirm that risks attributable to state repression spur rather than quell resistance by increasing outrage, politicized identification, identity consolidation and participative efficacies, and moral obligation. The implications of these findings for models of collective action and our understanding of the motives underlying engagement in repressive contexts are discussed.
The Curious Case of Black Conservatives: Construct Validity and the 7-point Liberal-Conservative Scale
Hakeem Jefferson
Stanford Working Paper, May 2020
Abstract:
Scholars have long puzzled over the existence of conservative-identifying black Americans who nonetheless identify with and vote for the Democratic Party. This paper resolves this paradox. Leveraging data from the American National Election Study, I demonstrate that the terms “liberal” and “conservative” are unfamiliar to many black Americans, rendering the commonly used 7-point liberal-conservative measure of ideology invalid for this population. Black respondents unfamiliar with these terms misapply them and choose ideological labels that fail to reflect their partisan preferences. Consequently, scholars and political actors make incorrect and imprecise inferences about the contours of black politics in the United States. Moreover, this article raises new concerns about the generalizability of claims that rely on ideological self-identification measures, including popular claims about polarization among the mass public. This work also suggests a need for caution when using concepts that vary in their meaningfulness across social groups.
Value extremity contributes to affective polarization in the US
Adam Enders & Robert Lupton
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
A wealth of research documents the rise of affective polarization, or the increasing disdain for the out-party in American politics. In this paper, we analyze ANES data from 1988 to 2016 to investigate the contribution of core value polarization to the phenomenon of out-party enmity. We find that greater differences in fundamental principles relate significantly to emotionally intense evaluations of the opposing party and its candidates, as well as the ideological out-group, independent of issue attitude extremity and the strength of one's partisan and ideological identities. Moreover, ANES panel data from 1992 to 1996 reveal that past value extremity promotes future affective polarization. These results are important for our understanding of the nature and extent of value-based polarization in American politics.
Moral Universalism and the Structure of Ideology
Benjamin Enke, Ricardo Rodríguez-Padilla & Florian Zimmermann
NBER Working Paper, July 2020
Abstract:
Throughout the Western world, people's policy views are correlated across domains in a strikingly similar fashion. This paper proposes that what partly explains the structure of ideology is moral universalism: the extent to which people's altruism and trust remain constant as social distance increases. In new large-scale multinational surveys, heterogeneity in universalism descriptively explains why the left and right both simultaneously support and oppose different types of government spending. Moreover, the left-right divide on topics such as redistribution strongly depends on whether people evaluate more or less universalist policies. Large-scale donation data provide additional evidence for the political left's universalism.
Reconciling Candidate Extremism and Spatial Voting
Benjamin Highton & Walter Stone
Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
We propose a modified spatial‐voting rule to explain why congressional candidates adopt more extreme ideological positions than their constituents' preferences. Our model accepts the standard spatial‐voting model with one critical exception: voters in the same party as a candidate tolerate extremism without imposing an electoral penalty. This, in turn, creates “leeway” for candidates to adopt extreme positions as they increasingly depend on voters from their own party. Electoral simulations demonstrate that a key election‐level implication of this model is that it explains candidate polarization without relying on institutional factors like primary elections. Finally, we show that asymmetry in perceptual bias is one possible mechanism and that real‐world patterns of ideological representation are consistent with our simulation results.
The Limits of Tolerance: Extreme Speakers on Campus
Anna Boch
Social Problems, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recently, colleges and universities across the United States have had to choose whether to allow controversial speakers on campus. This study uses a factorial experiment to investigate individual features of controversial speaker events, including student opinion, security risk, and actual event-based descriptions of extreme left and extreme right speakers. Contrary to earlier studies of political tolerance, this study finds that Republicans (and ideological conservatives) are slightly more tolerant of extreme speech than are Democrats and liberals. However, this difference is attenuated by three factors. The first is order effects: if Democrats are first asked about an extreme left speaker, they are then more tolerant of an extreme right speaker. Second, concerns about the possibility of harm resulting from the speech partially explain Democrats’ intolerance of the extreme right speaker. Third, asymmetric polarization has resulted in extreme right ideas entering the mainstream more than ideas from the far left; thus Democrats face a more arduous test of the classic liberal commitment to tolerance. Finally, this study contributes to the political tolerance literature by testing tolerance of new, extreme speaker targets on both the ideological left and right than what has previously been studied.
The Psychological Appeal of Fake-News Attributions
Jordan Axt, Mark Landau & Aaron Kay
Psychological Science, July 2020, Pages 848-857
Abstract:
The term fake news is increasingly used to discredit information from reputable news organizations. We tested the possibility that fake-news claims are appealing because they satisfy the need to see the world as structured. Believing that news organizations are involved in an orchestrated disinformation campaign implies a more orderly world than believing that the news is prone to random errors. Across six studies (N > 2,800), individuals with dispositionally high or situationally increased need for structure were more likely to attribute contested news stories to intentional deception than to journalistic incompetence. The effect persisted for stories that were ideologically consistent and ideologically inconsistent and after analyses controlled for strength of political identification. Political orientation showed a moderating effect; specifically, the link between need for structure and belief in intentional deception was stronger for Republican participants than for Democratic participants. This work helps to identify when, why, and for whom fake-news claims are persuasive.
Perceived Responsiveness Increases Tolerance of Attitude Ambivalence and Enhances Intentions to Behave in an Open-Minded Manner
Guy Itzchakov & Harry Reis
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can perceived responsiveness, the belief that meaningful others attend to and react supportively to core defining feature of the self, shape the structure of attitudes? We predicted that perceived responsiveness fosters open-mindedness, which, in turn, allows people to be simultaneously aware of opposing evaluations of an attitude object. We also hypothesized that this process will result in behavior intentions to consider multiple perspectives about the topic. Furthermore, we predicted that perceived responsiveness will enable people to tolerate accessible opposing evaluations without feeling discomfort. We found consistent support for our hypotheses in four laboratory experiments (Studies 1–3, 5) and a diary study (Study 4). Moreover, we found that perceived responsiveness reduces the perception that one’s initial attitude is correct and valid. These findings indicate that attitude structure and behavior intentions can be changed by an interpersonal variable, unrelated to the attitude itself.
Presidential Elections, Divided Politics, and Happiness in the USA
Sergio Pinto et al.
Economica, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the effects of the 2016 and 2012 US presidential election outcomes on subjective wellbeing across party identification. We use Gallup data and a regression discontinuity approach, and focus primarily on evaluative (life satisfaction) and hedonic (positive and negative affect) indicators. We find that both elections had strong negative wellbeing effects on those who identified with the losing party, with little or no increase in wellbeing for those identifying with the winning party. The negative effects for the losing side were larger in 2016 than in 2012, by a factor of three on some indicators, and were driven mainly by women and middle‐income households. As such, both elections had a net negative wellbeing effect, but more so in 2016. Local voting patterns did not have a substantial wellbeing impact, nor did congressional elections taking place the same day. In 2016, the election also changed respondents’ perceptions about the economy, their financial status, and their community. After both elections, hedonic wellbeing gaps across parties typically dissipated within two weeks, but there was more persistence in evaluative wellbeing gaps, especially in expected life satisfaction. The latter gap persisted throughout 2017.
News and Geolocated Social Media Accurately Measure Protest Size Variation
Anton Sobolev et al.
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Larger protests are more likely to lead to policy changes than small ones are, but whether or not attendance estimates provided in news or generated from social media are biased is an open question. This letter closes the question: news and geolocated social media data generate accurate estimates of protest size variation. This claim is substantiated using cellphone location data from more than 10 million individuals during the 2017 United States Women’s March protests. These cellphone estimates correlate strongly with those provided in news media as well as three size estimates generated using geolocated tweets, one text-based and two based on images. Inferences about protest attendance from these estimates match others’ findings about the Women’s March.
Social Media and the Changing Information Environment: Sentiment Differences in Read Versus Recirculated News Content
Patrick Kraft et al.
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is reason to believe that an increasing proportion of the news consumers receive is not from news producers directly but is recirculated through social network sites and email by ordinary citizens. This may produce some fundamental changes in the information environment, but the data to examine this possibility have thus far been relatively limited. In the current paper, we examine the changing information environment by leveraging a body of data on the frequency of (a) views, and recirculations through (b) Twitter, (c) Facebook, and (d) email of New York Times stories. We expect that the distribution of sentiment (positive-negative) in news stories will shift in a positive direction as we move from (a) to (d), based in large part on the literatures on self-presentation and imagined audiences. Our findings support this expectation and have important implications for the information contexts increasingly shaping public opinion.