Perceiving Political Polarization in the United States: Party Identity Strength and Attitude Extremity Exacerbate the Perceived Partisan Divide

People tend to overestimate the degree of polarization between political groups.

“People also tend to overestimate the degree of polarization (Levendusky & Malhotra 2016, Westfall et al. 2015) and animosity (Mernyk et al. 2022, Ruggeri et al. 2021) between political groups, which may be exacerbated by the abundance of divisive content they see online.”

Categorization emphasizes perceived differences between parties, with the opposing group's position always exaggerated more than the ingroup's position.

“According to the results of Westfall et al. (2015:149-151), categorization emphasizes perceived differences between parties (i.e., the opposing group's position is always exaggerated more than the ingroup's position 3 )”

The size of actual polarization in the U.S. was medium, but perceived polarization exceeded it by a factor of two.

“Previously, Westfall et al. (2015) found that the size of actual polarization in the U.S. was medium, but the perceived polarization exceeded it by a factor of two.”

Perceived polarization predicts political engagement.

“and perceived polarization predicts political engagement.”

Partisans might represent their adversaries as more obstructionist, more ideologically extreme, more prejudiced against the in-group, or more violent than they actually are.

“Partisans might also represent their adversaries as more obstructionist95, more ideologically extreme122,151–153, more prejudiced against the in-group55, or more violent154 than they actually are.”