Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“…socially important coalitions in their own right, determining patterns of cooperation and conflict even outside of political contexts, motivations to send and monitor signals of party allegiance can powerfully influence people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Finkel et al., 2020; Mason, 2018).”

“The real challenge is no longer the political elites or the distance between party positions but the increasing animosity, dislike, and distrust toward other party supporters-horizontal affective polarization-which threatens the co-existence (Iyengar et al., 2012; Mason, 2015, 2018).”

“According to our perspective, one driver of this polarization is increasing geographical and identity sorting, which leads to more contentious status battles between groups whose traits and talents slightly differ (Mason 2018; Murray 2012).”

“In recent elections, the descriptive norms of political reference groups, such as attachments to political parties (Mason 2018), may be increasingly salient, and in turn may have a relatively stronger influence on behavior than democratic norms.”

“Partisans generally hold negative affective evaluations of members of the outparty (e.g., Mason, 2018), which would naturally include an outparty president.”

“Further, when an individual ’ s political party af fi liation becomes central to their identity, it may lead to partisan moral disengagement, schadenfreude, and violence (Kalmoe & Mason, 2019; Mason, 2018).”

“…that partisan identification often overlapped with other identities such as race and gender, making partisanship a defining characteristic of how many Republican-leaning voters understood themselves (Abramowitz and McCoy, 2019; Abramowitz and Web-ster, 2016; Cohen, 2019; Cramer, 2016; Mason, 2018).”

“For instance, citizens have more difficulty agreeing with each other (Mason, 2018).”

“As several scholars have documented, party identification has increasingly become a part of Americans’ personal identities (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2016; Mason, 2018).”

“In short, perceptual biases are well-documented (for recent reviews, see: Achen and Bartels, 2017; Flynn et al., 2017; Mason, 2018), and have grown more pronounced in recent decades (Jones, 2020), particularly in highly polarized countries like the United States.”

“For example, some research has used the objective sorting of blacks and liberals to the Democratic Party in the US (Mason, 2018).”

“Studies of this pattern of affective polarization have described an intergroup distancing between partisans (Iyengar et al., 2019; Mason, 2018), often resulting from strengthening group identi fi cation aligned with lines of party con fl ict (Webster and Abramowitz, 2017).”

“From mask-wearing during coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 (Shin et al., 2022) and vaccination (Walter et al., 2020) to dating (Huber and Malhotra, 2017) and food preferences (Keefe, 2020), Americans’ behaviors could now be effectively predicted from their identification as either Republicans or Democrats.”

“[. . .] Under circumstances of threat of competition, however, the preference for the in-group can lead to outright hostility towards the out-group, particularly when competition is a zero-sum game” (Mason, 2018, p. 12).”

“This builds on Mason (2018), who shows that identity-based sorting has largely replaced issue-based sorting as a polarizing force over the last half-century and that instead of issues (policy core aspects) animating coalescence of coalitions at the macro-level, identity (deep core aspects) drives…”

“These observations accord, as well, with research on affective polarization (e.g., Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012; Mason 2018).”

“Political Behavior (2023) 45:1581–1607 et al., 2016; Green et al., 2002; Mason, 2018).”

“Political identities are also, importantly, becoming “mega-identities”: Scholars argue that partisanship is increasingly mapped onto other forms of social division such as race and ethnicity, religion, and geography (Achen & Bartels, 2017; Iyengar et al., 2012; Mason, 2018).”

“We measured identification with these labels—or as middle of the road—rather than specifically examining attitudes about positions or values associated with liberals or conservatives (Mason, 2018), or affiliation with a political party.”

“Mason (2018) holds that political polarization involves “tribalistic political loyalties” based on conflict between partisan groups defining themselves through social identities such as race, class, religion, and cultural preferences.”

“In the case of the pandemic, it does seem that local responses to the pandemic became politicized and then polarized (i.e., the processes outlined in Achen and Bartels 2017, Mason 2018).”

“In today’s polarized United States, political identity has become a beacon for differentiation (Mason, 2018).”

“As voters become more partisan and begin to care more about partisan outcomes instead of the quality democratic processes (Levendusky 2009;Mason 2018), their support for democratic institutions may diminish overtime, especially if their party is out of power.”

“Indeed, a substantial literature has attested to the role of social groups in motivating voter behavior, with partisanship being the most striking example (see Fowler & Kam, 2007; Greene, 1999; Mason, 2018; West & Iyengar, 2022).”

“We examined whether the voting of groups in the 2016 US election was influenced by their degree of trust in science and media, as well as the importance they attach to their social identities (Mason 2018).”

“…the status of their subordinate group they are attached to, which often leads to group-centred political behaviour in the form of pursuing policies to improve the lives of said marginalized social group (Tajfel and Turner 1979; Brewer 1999; Doosje et al. 2002; Leach et al. 2010; Mason 2018).”

“In recent years, the relationship between many state and local governments has grown more complex as the urban areas of a state usually have more liberal policy preferences than the rest of the state (Bishop & Cushing, 2008; Mason, 2018).”

“(Huber and Malhotra 2016), and perceptions of people (Ahler and Sood 2018; Mason 2018), we find little evidence of partisan polarization around workplace democratization.”

“Strong partisans, in particular, tend to be more hostile and prejudiced towards the opposition, even when their issue positions are moderate (Bankert et al., 2017; Mason, 2018).”

“…perhaps learning of outparty disunity is attractive because it signals that the outparty is weaker and, therefore, poses less of a political threat (Mason 2018).27 Nevertheless, this finding is critically important insofar as prior research finds that this type of information (conditional upon…”

“…a decrease in the competitiveness of elections at the federal and state level (Abramowitz et al. 2006; Herrnson, 2016; Jacobson & Carson, 2015) and a corresponding intensification of negative affective reactions toward the other party (Abramowitz & Webster, 2016; Iyengar et al., 2012; Mason, 2018).”

“Arguably, we are entering a new phase of heightened conflict where conflicts over the meaning of American national identity are animating politics (Mason, 2018; Sides et al., 2018).”

“Although strong partisans are more likely to indicate partisan bias (see Mason 2015, 2018), recent work has shown that even political leaners are close to partisans in their partisan intensity (Theodoridis 2017).”

“At a time of growing polarization where most voters are not persuadable (Mason 2018) and parties often focus on mobilizing their base, this is a troubling fi nding, as some of the undecided voters may decide not to vote for their party candidate on Election Day.”

“These considerations have led some scholars (e.g. Jacobs and Munis 2023) to conclude that rural identity should be considered alongside other pertinent identities in studies of partisan polarization (Mason 2018).”

“…distinct across election cycles in ways that are related to the popularity of ideological challengers, and as recent studies demonstrate much of what animates change in the party base across time is affect toward members of the other party (Abramowitz and Webster, 2016; Mason, 2015, 2018).”

“The rise of negative and affective partisanship—hostility to voters and politicians from the other party—made Republican voters more willing to choose extremists from their side (Mason 2018).”

“America’s major parties have sorted along social, ideological, and economic lines, producing greater intraparty homogeneity and interparty distance (Levendusky, 2009; Mason, 2018).”

“Working through the lens of political identity, Mason (2018) detailed how partisanship has become a “mega-identity” that aligns with socially sorted racial and ethnic, religious, geographic, and class identities.”

“The American public is deeply polarized along partisan lines (Iyengar et al., 2019; Mason, 2018).”

“Applying SIT to the US political context, it is evident that partisanship has become an increasingly salient social identity as political parties have “sorted” ideologically (Cassese, 2021; Iyengar et al., 2012, 2019 ; Iyengar & Krupenkin, 2018; Iyengar & Westwood, 2014; Mason, 2015, 2018).”

“As argued by Mason ( 2018 ), individuals increasingly align their political affiliations with core aspects of their individual identities, making them inseparable from their political posi - tions.”

“According to Mason (2015, 2016, 2018), one crucial explanation for affective partisan polarisation in the United States can be found in the increasing alignment of partisanship with other salient social identities, speci fi cally ideology, race, and religion.”

“However, if polarization is increasingly coupled with (a) fragmentation of the population, expressed as increased constraint, consolidation, sorting, and mutual disdain between groups (Mason 2018), and (b) hostile rhetoric, it may have detrimental consequences for social cohesion and democracy.”

“Individuals have an inherent tendency to formulate into social groups and then both penalize the out-group and reward the in-group (Mason 2018; Tajfel 1974).”

“Just as general levels of political and affective polarization have risen in the United States in recent years (Iyengar 2019; Mason, 2018; Theriault, 2008) political discourse in the United States has also become increasingly hostile, partisan, and divided (Ballard et al, 2022b; Herbst, 2010;…”

“Thus, like elections, local contests over politicized issues may serve as symbolic proxies for a status competition between partisan groups (Huddy and Bankert 2017, Mason 2018).”

“Our interviewees who fit into this group are an especially good window for viewing how conservatives think through their ideas about Trumpism—assessing the positives and negatives using a heuristic of issue preferences and ideological identities (Mason 2018).”

“Conservatives tended to adhere somewhat more to identity-based ideology influences despite their policy preferences differing more with the ideology than was the case for liberals (Mason, 2018).”

“First, the polarization of the electorate has only increased over the last decade (Mason 2018).”

“These divides have motivated increasing partisan polarization — resentment toward political opponents — across Western societies (Bettarelli et al., 2022; Gidron et al., 2022; Iyengar & Westwood, 2015; Mason, 2018; Reiljan, 2020).”

“These fi ndings align with other research showing that polarization and identity-based partisan sorting are predictors of activism on the individual level, as well (Simas and Ozer 2021; Wagner 2021; Mason 2018).”

“…actually agree on a lot more than the feelings thermometer would suggest and that polarization today has not increased, only ideological sorting of parties (that is, less conservative and moderate Democrats, less liberal and moderate Republicans) (Fiorina et al. 2010; Fiorina 2018; Mason 2018).”