Poles apart
Political Extremism Is Supported by an Illusion of Understanding
Philip Fernbach et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People often hold extreme political attitudes about complex policies. We hypothesized that people typically know less about such policies than they think they do (the illusion of explanatory depth) and that polarized attitudes are enabled by simplistic causal models. Asking people to explain policies in detail both undermined the illusion of explanatory depth and led to attitudes that were more moderate (Experiments 1 and 2). Although these effects occurred when people were asked to generate a mechanistic explanation, they did not occur when people were instead asked to enumerate reasons for their policy preferences (Experiment 2). Finally, generating mechanistic explanations reduced donations to relevant political advocacy groups (Experiment 3). The evidence suggests that people's mistaken sense that they understand the causal processes underlying policies contributes to political polarization.
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Media and Political Polarization
Markus Prior
Annual Review of Political Science, 2013, Pages 101-127
Abstract:
This article examines if the emergence of more partisan media has contributed to political polarization and led Americans to support more partisan policies and candidates. Congress and some newer media outlets have added more partisan messages to a continuing supply of mostly centrist news. Although political attitudes of most Americans have remained fairly moderate, evidence points to some polarization among the politically involved. Proliferation of media choices lowered the share of less interested, less partisan voters and thereby made elections more partisan. But evidence for a causal link between more partisan messages and changing attitudes or behaviors is mixed at best. Measurement problems hold back research on partisan selective exposure and its consequences. Ideologically one-sided news exposure may be largely confined to a small, but highly involved and influential, segment of the population. There is no firm evidence that partisan media are making ordinary Americans more partisan.
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Liberellas versus Konservatives: Social Status, Ideology, and Birth Names in the United States
Eric Oliver, Thomas Wood & Alexandra Bass
University of Chicago Working Paper, April 2013
Abstract:
Despite much public speculation, there is little scholarly research on whether or how ideology shapes American consumer behavior. Borrowing from previous studies, we theorize that ideology is associated with different forms of taste and conspicuous consumption: liberals are more drawn to indicators of "cultural capital" and more feminine symbols while conservatives favor more explicit signs of "economic capital" and masculine cues. These ideas are tested using birth certificate, U.S. Census, and voting records from California in 2004. We find strong differences in birth naming practices related to race, economic status, and ideology. Although higher status mothers of all races favor more popular birth names, high status liberal mothers more often choose uncommon, culturally obscure birth names. Liberals also favor birth names with "softer, feminine" sounds while conservatives favor names with "harder, masculine" phonemes. These findings have significant implications for both studies of consumption and debates about ideology and political fragmentation in the United States.
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Kevin Arceneaux, Martin Johnson & John Cryderman
Political Communication, Spring 2013, Pages 213-231
Abstract:
Political observers of all types often express concerns that Americans are dangerously polarized on political issues and are, in part due to the availability of opinionated niche news programming (e.g., ideological cable, radio, and Internet news sources), developing more entrenched political positions. However, these accounts often overlook the fact that the rise of niche news has been accompanied by the expansion of entertainment options and the ability to screen out political news altogether. We examine the polarizing effects of opinionated political talk shows by integrating the Elaboration Likelihood Model of attitude development into our own theoretical model of selective media exposure. We employ a novel experimental design that gives participants agency to choose among news and entertainment programming by including treatments that allow participants to select the programming they view. The results from two studies show that ideological shows do indeed have the power to polarize political attitudes, especially among individuals who possess strong motivations to craft counterarguments. However, the polarizing force of cable news is diminished considerably when individuals are given the option to tune out.
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Bryan Dettrey & James Campbell
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objectives: We investigate whether growing income inequality has heightened differences in economic interests between "the haves" and "the have nots" and if this class polarization has increased ideological polarization in the electorate.
Methods: We examine the trend in ideological orientation among low- and high-income voters from 1972 to 2008.
Results: While both income inequality and ideological polarization have increased in recent years, this analysis indicates that the growth in ideological polarization is not the result of growing income inequality. The well-off have not become significantly more conservative and less liberal nor have those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder become significantly more liberal and less conservative.
Conclusion: The analysis indicates that ideological polarization is the result of the increased polarization of the political parties, not class polarization.
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Who is Your Preferred Neighbor? Partisan Residential Preferences and Neighborhood Satisfaction
Iris Hui
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do people specifically seek to live among political co-partisans when they relocate? Does the partisan composition of the neighborhood affect their level of residential satisfaction? Drawing on survey data and a survey-embedded experiment, I find that people have a clear preference for co-partisans. Both Republican and Democrat identifiers prefer more co-partisans in their neighborhood. Although the preference is not the primary factor in deciding where to settle, the partisan composition of a neighborhood does affect an individual's sense of neighborhood satisfaction. Results from a survey-embedded experiment show that respondents' subjective satisfaction is sensitive to objective facts about their neighborhood. Respondents' satisfaction slightly decreases when told their neighborhood has a higher presence of members of the opposite party than perceived.
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The Impact of Elite Polarization on Partisan Ambivalence and Indifference
Judd Thornton
Political Behavior, June 2013, Pages 409-428
Abstract:
Considerable evidence documents the impact that elite polarization has had on the influence of partisanship on vote choice and attitudes. Yet, much of the electorate remains moderate. This paper seeks to shed some light on this paradox. Examining trends from 1952 to 2004 demonstrates that the electorate is now more opinionated about the parties than in the recent past, but that a significant portion of the increase is in the form of negative statements about an individual's party - there are fewer indifferent individuals, but the electorate is not overwhelmingly more one-sided, instead there has been an increase in both the proportion of one-sided and ambivalent individuals. It is next examined if the intensity of one's ideological and partisan self-identification influences how they respond to elite polarization. The results suggest that non-ideologues and pure independents are more likely to be indifferent; all other groups have shown a decline in the likelihood of being indifferent and an increase in ambivalence. The results demonstrate that the public is responding to the increased clarity in elite positions in the form of an increased number of opinions, but for many the increase results from a mix of positive and negative reactions.
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Sophisticated and myopic? Citizen preferences for Electoral College reform
John Aldrich, Jason Reifler & Michael Munger
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Different institutions can produce more (or less) preferred outcomes, in terms of citizens' preferences. Consequently, citizen preferences over institutions may "inherit"-to use William Riker's term-the features of preferences over outcomes. But the level of information and understanding required for this effect to be observable seems quite high. In this paper, we investigate whether Riker's intuition about citizens acting on institutional preferences is borne out by an original empirical dataset collected for this purpose. These data, a survey commissioned specifically for this project, were collected as part of a larger nationally representative sample conducted right before the 2004 election. The results show that support for a reform to split a state's Electoral College votes proportionally is explained by (1) which candidate one supports, (2) which candidate one thinks is likely to win the election under the existing system of apportionment, (3) preferences for abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote winner, and (4) statistical interactions between these variables. In baldly political terms, Kerry voters tend to support splitting their state's Electoral College votes if they felt George W. Bush was likely to win in that state. But Kerry voters who expect Kerry to win their state favor winner-take-all Electoral College rules for their state. In both cases, mutatis mutandis, the reverse is true for Bush voters.
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Jacob Jensen et al.
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2012, Pages 1-81
Abstract:
We use the digitized Congressional Record and the Google Ngrams corpus to study the polarization of political discourse and the diffusion of political language since 1873. We statistically identify highly partisan phrases from the Congressional Record and then use these to impute partisanship and political polarization to the Google Books corpus between 1873 and 2000. We find that although political discourse expressed in books did become more polarized in the late 1990s, polarization remained low relative to the late 19th and much of the 20th century. We also find that polarization of discourse in books predicts legislative gridlock, but polarization of congressional language does not. Using a dynamic panel data set of phrases, we find that polarized phrases increase in frequency in Google Books before their use increases in congressional speech. Our evidence is consistent with an autonomous effect of elite discourse on congressional speech and legislative gridlock, but this effect is not large enough to drive the recent increase in congressional polarization.
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Daniel Jolley & Karen Douglas
British Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current studies explored the social consequences of exposure to conspiracy theories. In Study 1, participants were exposed to a range of conspiracy theories concerning government involvement in significant events such as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Results revealed that exposure to information supporting conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to engage in politics, relative to participants who were given information refuting conspiracy theories. This effect was mediated by feelings of political powerlessness. In Study 2, participants were exposed to conspiracy theories concerning the issue of climate change. Results revealed that exposure to information supporting the conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to reduce their carbon footprint, relative to participants who were given refuting information, or those in a control condition. This effect was mediated by powerlessness with respect to climate change, uncertainty, and disillusionment. Exposure to climate change conspiracy theories also influenced political intentions, an effect mediated by political powerlessness. The current findings suggest that conspiracy theories may have potentially significant social consequences, and highlight the need for further research on the social psychology of conspiracism.
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The Political Consequences of Uninformed Voters
Anthony Fowler & Michele Margolis
Harvard Working Paper, February 2012
Abstract:
Survey researchers have long known that Americans fail to meet the democratic ideal of an informed electorate. The consequences of this political ignorance, however, are less clear. In two independent settings, we experimentally test the effect of political information on citizens' attitudes toward the major parties. In our first experiment we use a three-wave panel design to capture the effects of political knowledge and assess whether political information has a lasting effect on partisan attitudes. In our second experiment we replicate our findings on the Congressional Cooperative Election Study using a more nationally representative sample. When uninformed citizens receive political information, they systematically shift their political preferences away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. In contrast to the optimistic claims that political ignorance is offset through other mechanisms, the American electorate's lack of information typically produces results that differ from the ideal counterfactual world in which all voters are informed.
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Why Does Balanced News Produce Unbalanced Views?
Edward Glaeser & Cass Sunstein
NBER Working Paper, April 2013
Abstract:
Many studies find that presentation of balanced information, offering competing positions, can promote polarization and thus increase preexisting social divisions. We offer two explanations for this apparently puzzling phenomenon. The first involves what we call asymmetric Bayesianism: the same information can have diametrically opposite effects if those who receive it have opposing antecedent convictions. Recipients whose beliefs are buttressed by the message, or a relevant part, rationally believe that it is true, while recipients whose beliefs are at odds with that message, or a relevant part, rationally believe that the message is false (and may reflect desperation). The second explanation is that the same information can activate radically different memories and associated convictions, thus producing polarized responses to that information, or what we call a memory boomerang. An understanding of these explanations reveals when balanced news will produce unbalanced views. The explanations also account for the potential influence of "surprising validators." Because such validators are credible to the relevant audience, they can reduce the likelihood of asymmetric Bayesianism, thus promoting agreement.
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Hannah Nam, John Jost & Jay Van Bavel
PLoS ONE, April 2013
Abstract:
People often avoid information and situations that have the potential to contradict previously held beliefs and attitudes (i.e., situations that arouse cognitive dissonance). According to the motivated social cognition model of political ideology, conservatives tend to have stronger epistemic needs to attain certainty and closure than liberals. This implies that there may be differences in how liberals and conservatives respond to dissonance-arousing situations. In two experiments, we investigated the possibility that conservatives would be more strongly motivated to avoid dissonance-arousing tasks than liberals. Indeed, U.S. residents who preferred more conservative presidents (George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan) complied less than Americans who preferred more liberal presidents (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton) with the request to write a counter-attitudinal essay about who made a "better president." This difference was not observed under circumstances of low perceived choice or when the topic of the counter-attitudinal essay was non-political (i.e., when it pertained to computer or beverage preferences). The results of these experiments provide initial evidence of ideological differences in dissonance avoidance. Future work would do well to determine whether such differences are specific to political issues or topics that are personally important. Implications for political behavior are discussed.
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Tilo Hartmann & Martin Tanis
Journal of Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
This approach conceptualizes the hostile media effect (HME) as an intergroup phenomenon. Two empirical studies, one quasi-experimental and one experimental, examine the HME in the context of the abortion debate. Both studies show that ingroup identification and group status qualify the HME. Pro-choice and pro-life group members perceived an identical newspaper article as biased against their own viewpoint only if they considered their ingroup to have a lower status in society than the outgroup. In addition, only group members with a stronger ingroup identification showed a HME, particularly because of self-investment components of ingroup identification. Taken together, the findings confirm the important influence of ingroup status and ingroup identification on the HME.
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The Effects of Beneficiary Targeting on Public Support for Social Policies
Eric Lawrence, Robert Stoker & Harold Wolman
Policy Studies Journal, May 2013, Pages 199-216
Abstract:
We assess the tendency for the public to use group-centric policy evaluations with evidence from a survey experiment concerning two issues within the social policy domain, health care and aid to cities. By randomly varying target group identity within each issue and using both negatively and positively regarded groups our evidence shows that differences exist in the tendency for members of the public to use group-centric heuristics. Group-centric evaluations are related to party identification and political ideology. Across both issues conservatives and Republicans are more likely than liberals or Democrats to adopt a group-centric heuristic. Partisan and ideological differences suggest that established theories miss the mark by emphasizing how universal policy designs are preferred to designs that target unpopular groups.
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Gresham's Law of Political Communication: How Citizens Respond to Conflicting Information
Cheryl Boudreau
Political Communication, Spring 2013, Pages 193-212
Abstract:
Although citizens are often exposed to conflicting communications from political elites, few studies examine the effects of conflicting information on the quality of citizens' decisions. Thus, I conduct experiments in which subjects are exposed to conflicting information before making decisions that affect their future welfare. The results suggest that a version of Gresham's Law operates in the context of political communication. When a credible source of information suggests the welfare-improving choice and a less credible source simultaneously suggests a choice that will make subjects worse off, subjects make worse decisions than when only the credible source is available. This occurs because many subjects base their decisions upon the less credible source or forgo participation. This occurs mostly among unsophisticated subjects, who are more easily led astray. These findings reveal important limits to the effectiveness of credible information sources and suggest how political campaigns might strategically use conflicting information to their benefit.
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Compulsory voting and the dynamics of partisan identification
Shane Singh & Judd Thornton
European Journal of Political Research, March 2013, Pages 188-211
Abstract:
Compulsory rules are known to have far-reaching effects beyond boosting electoral participation rates. This article examines the relationship between compulsory voting and partisan attachments. A theory of attachment formation and strength is engaged that argues that compulsory voting boosts the likelihood that one will identify with a party and, in turn, the strength of party attachments among identifiers. The statistical model accounts for both the hierarchical structure of the data (individuals in elections) and the dual nature of the dependent variable (individuals report a strength of attachment only for the party with which they identify). Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it is demonstrated that compulsory voting does indeed increase both the incidence and the strength of partisanship.
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Endogenous institutions and political extremism
Alexander Wolitzky
Games and Economic Behavior, September 2013, Pages 86-100
Abstract:
The election of extreme political leaders is often associated with changes in political institutions. This paper studies these phenomena through a model in which the median voter elects a leader anticipating that he will impose institutional constraints - such as constitutional amendments, judicial appointments, or the implicit threat of a coup - that influence the behavior of future political challengers. It is typically optimal for the median voter to elect an extreme incumbent when democracy is less fully consolidated, when the costs of imposing institutional constraints are intermediate, and when the distribution of potential challengers is asymmetric. The median voter typically elects a more right-wing incumbent when the distribution of potential challengers shifts to the left. Implications of the model for the consolidation of democracy and institutional constraints are discussed, as are several related mechanisms through which politicians? ability to affect institutions may lead voters to optimally elect extremists.
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Jessica Neff et al.
PLoS ONE, April 2013
Background: In their 2005 study, Adamic and Glance coined the memorable phrase 'divided they blog', referring to a trend of cyberbalkanization in the political blogosphere, with liberal and conservative blogs tending to link to other blogs with a similar political slant, and not to one another. As political discussion and activity increasingly moves online, the power of framing political discourses is shifting from mass media to social media.
Methodology/Principal Findings: Continued examination of political interactions online is critical, and we extend this line of research by examining the activities of political users within the Wikipedia community. First, we examined how users in Wikipedia choose to display their political affiliation. Next, we analyzed the patterns of cross-party interaction and community participation among those users proclaiming a political affiliation. In contrast to previous analyses of other social media, we did not find strong trends indicating a preference to interact with members of the same political party within the Wikipedia community.
Conclusions/Significance: Our results indicate that users who proclaim their political affiliation within the community tend to proclaim their identity as a 'Wikipedian' even more loudly. It seems that the shared identity of 'being Wikipedian' may be strong enough to triumph over other potentially divisive facets of personal identity, such as political affiliation.
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Aged Communities and Political Knowledge
Brittany Bramlett
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Past work emphasizes the decline of cognition into older age. Recent work suggests that living in an aged community provides ample opportunity for social interaction with peers and that these older residents perform better cognitively than more isolated seniors. I test whether this relationship is evident for the political cognition of older residents with NAES data from 2000 and 2004. Findings indicate higher levels of political knowledge among seniors living in aged communities compared with their peers living in places without the same social context.