The Nature of Affective Polarization: Disentangling Policy Disagreement from Partisan Identity
Abstract
Democrats and Republicans clearly dislike one another. Yet, scholars debate whether policy disagreement or partisan identity, per se, drives interparty animus. Past studies suggest the relationship between partisanship and interpersonal affect is spurious, driven by inferred policy preferences. We argue, instead, that policy preferences signal partisan identity when the parties' stances on an issue are well‐known. Using a nationally representative survey and four preregistered experiments, we disentangle the effects of policy disagreement and partisan identity on interpersonal affect. Our findings suggest that partisan identity is the principal mechanism of affective polarization, and that policy preferences factor into affective polarization largely by signaling partisan identity. However, our results also affirm that policy disagreement in itself drives interpersonal affect. This provides evidence that partisanship reflects an emotional attachment to a political party, not merely a running tally of rational considerations.
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Learning about policy disagreements between rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans made partisan identities more salient and caused participants to express more warmth towards in-party members and less warmth towards out-party members.
“Another series of experiments demonstrated that learning about policy disagreements between rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans made partisan identities more salient and caused participants to express more warmth towards in-party members and less warmth towards out-party members81.”
From Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts (2022) · cites this paper as [81]
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- Authors
- Dias, N., & Lelkes, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Pennsylvania
- ORCID
- Dias, Nicholas
- Venue
- American Journal of Political Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2021-06-07
- Volume
- 66
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 775-790
- ISSN
- 0092-5853 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-5907
- OpenAlex
- W3168520892
- Cited by
- 338
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 65 · 2025: 86 · 2024: 73 · 2023: 50 · 2022: 60 · 2021: 4
- FWCI
- 155.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Journal of Political Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Keywords
- affective polarization, partisan identity, policy disagreement, interpersonal affect, Democrats and Republicans
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