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Affective polarization and political belief systems: The role of political identity and the content and structure of political beliefs
Turner-Zwinkels,Felicity van Noord,Jochem Kesberg,Rebekka García-Sánchez,Efrain Brandt,Mark Kuppens,Toon Easterbrook,Matthew J. Smets,Lien Gorska,Paulina Marchlewska, Marta
Turner-Zwinkels,Felicity
van Noord,Jochem
Kesberg,Rebekka
García-Sánchez,Efrain
Brandt,Mark
Kuppens,Toon
Easterbrook,Matthew J.
Smets,Lien
Gorska,Paulina
Marchlewska, Marta
Abstract
We investigate the extent that political identity, political belief content (i.e., attitude stances), and political belief system structure (i.e., relations among attitudes) differences are associated with affective polarization (i.e., viewing ingroup partisans positively and outgroup partisans negatively) in two multinational, cross-sectional studies (Study 1 N = 4,152, Study 2 N = 29,994). First, we found a large, positive association between political identity and group liking—participants liked their ingroup substantially more than their outgroup. Second, political belief system content and structure had opposite associations with group liking: Sharing similar belief system content with an outgroup was associated with more outgroup liking, but similarity with the ingroup was associated with less ingroup liking. The opposite pattern was found for political belief system structure. Thus, affective polarization was greatest when belief system content similarity was low and structure similarity was high.
Description
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is financially supported by the NORFACE Joint Research Programme on Democratic Governance in a Turbulent Age and cofunded by NWO, ESRC, AEI, NSC, FWO, and the European Commission through Horizon 2020 under grant agreement number 822166.
Date
2023
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Research Projects
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Keywords
affective polarization, political attitudes, political belief systems, political identity
Citation
Turner-Zwinkels, F, van Noord, J, Kesberg, R, García-Sánchez, E, Brandt, M, Kuppens, T, Easterbrook, M J, Smets, L, Gorska, P, Marchlewska, M & Turner-Zwinkels, T 2023, 'Affective polarization and political belief systems : The role of political identity and the content and structure of political beliefs', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231183935
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess