Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“In more recent research, theorists have argued that social identification and its associated ten - dencies also serve other putatively basic psychological needs, such as belonginess and certainty (see Mason, 2018).”

“…threat will thus depend on factors such as the ideological distance between one ’ s own preferences and those of the party (Rogowski and Sutherland, 2016) or the extent to which groups have solidified into stable, deep-seated social identities or even tribes (Mason, 2018; Finkel et al. , 2020).”

“2015; Mason 2018).”

“Party identification, typically categorized as Democrat or Republican in the United States, has functioned as a key group identity associated with a host of attitudinal and behavioral consequences (Iyengar et al., 2019; Mason, 2018).”

“At the voter level, we know that political anger is related to both ideological sorting (Webster and Abramowitz 2017 ) and social sorting (Mason 2015 , 2018 ; Webster 2020 ).”

“Factors of the sort we considered here are more predictive of political identification than they were 50 years ago, as social sorting has grown (Mason 2018).”

“Although political identities increasingly overlap with other identities, such as gender and race (Mason, 2018), when two or more social identities determine citizens’ directional motivations at the same time, some citizens might be faced with an internal conflict.”

“For evidence of increased partisan competition and polarization among members of the House of Representatives, see Lee (2016); for evidence of partisanship disapproval among voters, see Abramowitz and Saunders (2008) and Mason (2018).”

“1 Indeed, as several scholars have demonstrated, social identities have become increasingly associated with partisan affiliation (Mason 2018; Mason and Wronski 2018; Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck 2018).”

“Mason (2015) further finds that citizens’ whose partisan and ideological identifications are more closely aligned with one another report higher levels of social—or affective—polarization (see also Mason, 2018).”

“…the 1990s and 2000s, mainly as a way of describing the then apparently new traits of political behaviour characterised, as many authors argued, by the ongoing decline of political correctness (Wilson, 1995) and the growing opposition, polarisation, and adversariness in public debates (Mason, 2018).”

“…polarization can prompt animosity toward opponents as neighbors, coworkers, or family members (Iyengar et al. 2019), economic discrimination against partisan opponents (McConnell et al. 2018), and willingness to violate democratic norms in pursuit of political objectives (Kalmoe and Mason 2018).”

“In addition, powerful drivers of human behavior—inclusion and exclusion within and among groups—and conflicts between self-identity and group identity (Mason, 2018) are often overlooked.”

“Contemporary politics has seen a rise in affective, negative, and even hostile partisanship (Abramowitz and Webster 2016; Mason 2018), with partisans not only rejecting members of the other side, but also seeing them as worthy of harm and rewarding candidates who disproportionately disadvantage…”

“The growing overlap among social identities, as well as social influence within increasingly homogeneous groups (including religious communities), intensified partisan and ideological polarization (Klar 2014; Mason 2018).”

“The concept of partisanship theorized in advanced democracies is related to the psychological attachment to parties and group identities (Huddy et al., 2015) and social sorting (Mason, 2018), developed over a long time in history passing generations.”

“After a period of electoral dealignment, the realignment of the American electorate into ideologically and socially sorted partisan groups, reduced cross-pressures and motivated a growth in affective polarization (Dalton, 2018; Levendusky, 2013; Mason, 2018).”

“…identity is salient, cues from out-group political elites can result in individuals having heightened negative views of the out-group, while reinforcing their own partisan beliefs, which can heighten polarized attitudes about issues (e.g. Iyengar and Westwood, 2015; Jennings, 2019; Mason, 2018a).”

“Mason (2018) demonstrates the power of partisanship as a social identity in shaping our social behaviors, including social distancing where we are likely to avoid socially interacting with those who do not share our partisan identity.”

“Also, Appendix lists unique summaries of each of the provisions. public at large—the fact that party has become a form of identity in modern political culture (Mason 2018).”

“Many powerful insights have emerged from scholars adopting a group theory of partisanship (e.g., Achen & Bartels, 2016; Iyengar et al., 2012; Mason, 2018).”

“One of the main challenges facing democratic societies of today is an increased “affective polarization” between groups, where supporters of one group or party are severely biased against, and may even hate, supporters of another group or party (see, for example, Iyengar et al., 2019; Mason, 2018).”

“The same is true of group interests—which may take material forms based on resource competition (Bobo & Hutchings, 1996) or symbolic forms associated with “identity politics” (Jardina, 2019; Mason, 2018).”

“In-group/out-group biases can also lead people to engage in motivated reasoning (Mason, 2018), or using information that supports existing beliefs to arrive at certain conclusions or choices (Kunda, 1990; Strickland et al. , 2011).”

“We argue that analyzing audience engagement is decisive in understanding whether and how different actors contribute to the emotionalization of political discussion, with important implications for the quality of public discussions in various countries (Mason, 2018).”

“Empirical studies suggest that affective polarization can increase even while ideological differences remain static (Iyengar et al., 2012; Lelkes, 2016; Mason, 2018).”

“As a result, it is reasonable to expect that activists who identify themselves with parties, ideologies, and/or activist organizations may align their views on intersectionality with these entities (Mason 2018).”

“Political identity is irreducible to differences in issue positions as research shows policy positions even on fundamental issues such as abortion shift in line with partisan identities over time (Achen and Bartels, 2016; Mason, 2018).”

“The reduction of cross-cutting identities which this brings further strengthens the sense of difference and distrust (Mason, 2016, 2018).”

“It seems only natural that partisans would like each other less, view the other side as illegitimate, and be less amenable to compromise (Davis 2019; DellaPosta forthcoming; Iyengar and Westwood 2015; Mason 2018).”

“In addition, stronger social identification and group consciousness motivates some group members to gain rights or benefits for that group (Fowler and Kam 2007; Jardina 2019; Mason 2018).”

“Whereas the American alliance structure used to be more cross-cutting in prior decades, two super-alliances have recently coalesced that combine partisan, ideological, religious, ethnic, regional, and cultural differences, leading to increased polarization (Abramowitz, 2018; Mason, 2018).”

“Chief among these reasons is the fact that racialized identities have a strong relationship with political identities (Mason 2018; Tesler 2016).”

“Such categorization can affect politics through evaluations of the president’s performance, the candidates’ policy positions and our voting behaviour, partially based on our social identities (Achen & Bartels, 2016; Huddy, 2001; Lazarsfeld et al., 1944; Mason, 2018; Tesler, 2012, 2016).”

“…like Trumpism in the United States, or Orbanism in Hungary, become emotional movements based on a blend of personalization and personification, combined with conspiratorial thinking, anti-establishment sentiment, and affective polarization (Hochschild, 2016; Mason, 2018; Nai et al., 2019), they tap”

“Sorting is a process by which the American political parties are growing increasingly homogeneous (Abramowitz 2010; Levendusky 2009; Mason 2018).”

“Within the context of politics, and especially American politics in the first part of the twenty-first century, partisanship operates as a group identity (Mason, 2018) with powerful effects on how partisans perceive actions by politicians.”

“…on mainstream political elites (Zaller, 1992), mainstream parties and ideologies (Campbell et al., 1960; Converse, 1964), and the differences between those parties that promote (or are promoted by) sorting and polarization (Mason, 2018), cannot fully account for the aforementioned beliefs in CTM.”

“Furthermore, trends of declining trust in news and increasing affective polarization have been connected with a particularly strong relationship between partisanship and trust in news in the United States (Gottfried and Liedke 2021; Mason 2018; Suiter and Fletcher 2020).”

“Extant social identity research has focused on partisanship (Green et al., 2003; Mason, 2018), race and ethnicity (Jardina, 2019 ; McClain et al., 2009), and ideology (Conover & Feldman, 1981).”

“In addition to the greater alignment between party and issue positions, Americans have also increasingly sorted themselves into the two major parties along racial, ethnic, gender, educational, economic, religious, and geographic lines (Abramowitz, 2018; Mason, 2018).”

“Similarly, mason (2018) finds that social-partisan sorting—a correlate of affective polarization— increases activism in terms of donating and volunteering in elections (also see Wagner 2021).”

“Mason (2018) explained that the two parties are becoming more distinct, and citizens often select a political team.”

“…parties (Finkel et al., 2020), such that where one falls on the liberalconservative continuum serves as a salient marker of political identity (Mason, 2018).7 Since denigrating competitive outgroups also bolsters one’s social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), for highly identified Democrats,…”

“Building on work that evaluates the role of social identities in partisanship (Mason 2018) and shifts in gendered attachments to the parties (Ondercin 2017), we demonstrate the centrality of elite positioning, issue ownership, and issue salience to shifts in the mass public ’ s partisan preferences.”

“…of growing importance as concern over “alternative facts” and “fake news”—combined with ideological and affective polarization that make individuals less likely to doubt elites from their own party—takes center stage in American politics (Mason 2018; Rogowski and Sutherland 2016; Schuessler 2017).”

“Existing research demonstrates that partisan identities play increasingly important roles inUS political discourse (Mason 2018).”

“…recent scholarship has focussed on the political divide over political parties (see, for example, Iyengar et al. 2012; Iyengar and Westwood 2015; Mason 2015, 2018; Westwood et al. 2018; Reiljan 2020; Gidron et al. 2020),4 there have been relatively few systematic studies that expand the scope…”

“Mason (2018) for example, documents that as Americans more closely align their various ethnic, religious, and political identities, the more distrustful and intolerant they become toward cultural or political out-groups.”

“Therefore, individual participation could result from “ anger, prejudice, and activism on behalf of that prejudice and anger ” (Mason, 2018, p. 4).”

“There is a direct link between this automatic party identity voting observed by Achen and Bartels (2016), Cramer (2016), and Mason (2018) and the populist notion of “silent majorities” (Canovan 1999;Mudde 2004), waiting to bemobilized to express their concerns on changing circumstances— both…”

“…identities (Brewer 1999; Brewer and Pierce 2005; Roccas and Brewer 2002), recent studies claim that individuals whose group identities are nonaligned or cross-cutting tend to be more tolerant, less biased, and feel more positively toward out-groups (Mason 2015; 2016; 2018; Mason and Wronski 2018).”

“…research on cleavage identities needs to go further than studies of partisan identities, issue identities, and affective polarization (Achen and Bartels 2016; Mason 2018; Gidron, Adams, and Horne 2020; Hobolt, Leeper, and Tilley 2021; Helbling and Jungkunz 2020; Wagner 2021; Reiljan 2020).”

“Third, because of these cognitive tendencies, citizens are thought to grow more polarized and socially sorted (Iyengar and Westwood 2015; Mason 2018; Rawlings 2022), from which a down-ward recursive spiral of democratic dysfunction emerges.”

“Affective polarization is largely thought to result from social identity commitments rather than ideology (Iyengar et al., 2012; Mason, 2018; Strickler, 2017; Suhay, 2015).”