Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter June 9, 2018

Partisanship as Social Identity; Implications for the Study of Party Polarization

  • Shanto Iyengar EMAIL logo and Masha Krupenkin EMAIL logo
From the journal The Forum

Abstract

Partisanship continues to divide Americans. Using data from the American National Election Study, as well as implicit attitude tests, we argue that Americans’ partisan identity has become highly salient. Partisans have become more negative towards the opposing party on both explicit and implicit measures, and these biases spill over into their everyday decisions. Partisanship has become one of Americans’ most salient social identities.

References

Abramowitz, Alan. 2010. The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Abramowitz, Alan I., and Kyle L. Saunders. 2008. “Is Polarization a Myth?” The Journal of Politics 70 (2): 542–555.10.1017/S0022381608080493Search in Google Scholar

Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. 2017. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections do not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400888740Search in Google Scholar

Adamic, Lada A., and Natalie Glance. 2005. “The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 US Election: Divided they Blog.” In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Link Discovery, 36–43. ACM.10.1145/1134271.1134277Search in Google Scholar

Alford, John R., Peter K. Hatemi, John R. Hibbing, Nicholas G. Martin, and Lindon J. Eaves. 2011. “The Politics of Mate Choice.” The Journal of Politics 73 (2): 362–379.10.1017/S0022381611000016Search in Google Scholar

Asendorpf, Jens B., Rainer Banse, and Daniel Mücke. 2002. “Double Dissociation Between Implicit and Explicit Personality Self-Concept: The Case of Shy Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83 (2): 380.10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.380Search in Google Scholar

Banaji, Mahzarin R., and Larisa Heiphetz. 2010. “Attitudes.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert and G. Lindzey, 353–393. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley and Sons Inc.Search in Google Scholar

Bargh, John A. 1999. “The Cognitive Monster: The Case Against the Controllability of Automatic Stereotype Effects.” In Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology, edited by S. Chaiken and Y. Trope, 361–382. New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.Search in Google Scholar

Baron, Andrew Scott, and Mahzarin R. Banaji. 2006. “The Development of Implicit Attitudes: Evidence of Race Evaluations from Ages 6 and 10 and Adulthood.” Psychological Science 17 (1): 53–58.10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01664.xSearch in Google Scholar

Bartels, Larry M. 2002. “Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions.” Political Behavior 24 (2): 117–150.10.1023/A:1021226224601Search in Google Scholar

Billig, Michael, and Henri Tajfel. 1973. “Social Categorization and Similarity in Intergroup Behaviour.” European Journal of Social Psychology 3 (1): 27–52.10.1002/ejsp.2420030103Search in Google Scholar

Boysen, Guy A., David L. Vogel, and Stephanie Madon. 2006. “A Public Versus Private Administration of the Implicit Association Test.” European Journal of Social Psychology 36 (6): 845–856.10.1002/ejsp.318Search in Google Scholar

Bullock, John G., Alan S. Gerber, Seth J. Hill, and Gregory A. Huber. 2015. “Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs about Politics.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10: 519–578.10.3386/w19080Search in Google Scholar

Campbell, James E. 2008. “Presidential Politics in a Polarized Nation: The Reelection of George W. Bush.” The George W. Bush Legacy 21–44.10.4135/9781483330631.n2Search in Google Scholar

Campbell, Angus, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Search in Google Scholar

Choi, Hyunyoung, and Hal Varian. 2012. “Predicting the Present with Google Trends.” Economic Record 88 (s1): 2–9.10.1111/j.1475-4932.2012.00809.xSearch in Google Scholar

Converse, Philip E. 1969. “Of Time and Partisan Stability.” Comparative Political Studies 2 (2): 139–171.10.1177/001041406900200201Search in Google Scholar

Fiorina, Morris. 2017. Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting, and Political Stalemate. Stanford, CA: Hoover Press.Search in Google Scholar

Fiorina, Morris P., Samuel A. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope. 2008. “Polarization in the American Public: Misconceptions and Misreadings.” The Journal of Politics 70 (2): 556–560.10.1017/S002238160808050XSearch in Google Scholar

Flaxman, Seth, Sharad Goel, and Justin M. Rao. 2016. “Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption.” Public Opinion Quarterly 80 (S1): 298–320.10.1093/poq/nfw006Search in Google Scholar

Gentzkow, Matthew, and Jesse M. Shapiro. 2011. “Ideological Segregation Online and Offline.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (4): 1799–1839.10.3386/w15916Search in Google Scholar

Gerber, Alan S., and Gregory A. Huber. 2010. “Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (1): 153–173.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00424.xSearch in Google Scholar

Gift, Karen, and Thomas Gift. 2015. “Does Politics Influence Hiring? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment.” Political Behavior 37 (3): 653–675.10.1007/s11109-014-9286-0Search in Google Scholar

Green, Donald, Bradley Palmquist, and Eric Schickler. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds.New Haven: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Greene, Steven. 1999. “Understanding Party Identification: A Social Identity Approach.” Political Psychology 20 (2): 393–403.10.1111/0162-895X.00150Search in Google Scholar

Greenwald, Anthony G., and Mahzarin R. Banaji. 1995. “Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes, Self-Esteem, and Stereotypes.” Psychological Review 102 (1): 4.10.1037/0033-295X.102.1.4Search in Google Scholar

Greenwald, Anthony G., Debbie E. McGhee, and Jordan L. K. Schwartz. 1998. “Measuring Individual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (6): 1464.10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464Search in Google Scholar

Greenwald, Anthony G., Brian A. Nosek, and Mahzarin R. Banaji. 2003. “Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test: I. An Improved Scoring Algorithm.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (2): 197.10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.197Search in Google Scholar

Gubler, Joshua R., and Joel Sawat Selway. 2012. “Horizontal Inequality, Crosscutting Cleavages, and Civil War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 56 (2): 206–232.10.1177/0022002711431416Search in Google Scholar

Haslam, S. Alexander, Penelope J. Oakes, Katherine J. Reynolds, and John C. Turner. 1999. “Social Identity Salience and the Emergence of Stereotype Consensus.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (7): 809–818.10.1177/0146167299025007004Search in Google Scholar

Hersh, Eitan D., and Matthew N. Goldenberg. 2016. “Democratic and Republican Physicians Provide Different Care on Politicized Health Issues.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 (42): 11811–11816.10.1073/pnas.1606609113Search in Google Scholar

Huber, Gregory A., and Neil Malhotra. 2017. “Political Homophily in Social Relationships: Evidence from Online Dating Behavior.” The Journal of Politics 79 (1): 269–283.10.1086/687533Search in Google Scholar

Huddy, Leonie, Lilliana Mason, and Lene Aarøe. 2015. “Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity.” American Political Science Review 109 (1): 1–17.10.1017/S0003055414000604Search in Google Scholar

Iyengar, Shanto, and Kyu S. Hahn. 2009. “Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use.” Journal of Communication 59 (1): 19–39.10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.01402.xSearch in Google Scholar

Iyengar, Shanto, and Sean J. Westwood. 2015. “Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (3): 690–707.10.1111/ajps.12152Search in Google Scholar

Iyengar, Shanto, Gaurav Sood, and Yphtach Lelkes. 2012. “Affect, Not Ideologya Social Identity Perspective on Polarization.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (3): 405–431.10.1093/poq/nfs038Search in Google Scholar

Iyengar, Shanto, Tobias Konitzer, and Kent Tedin. 2018a. “The Home as a Political Fortress; Family Agreement in an Era of Polarization.” Technical report, Working Paper.10.1086/698929Search in Google Scholar

Iyengar, Shanto, Yptach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean Westwood. 2018b. “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization.” Annual Review of Political Science 21.Search in Google Scholar

Jacobson, Gary C., and Jamie L. Carson. 2015. The Politics of Congressional Elections. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar

Jennings, M. Kent, and Richard G. Niemi. 1974. Political Character of Adolescence: The Influence of Families and Schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Jennings, M. Kent, Laura Stoker, and Jake Bowers. 2009. “Politics Across Generations: Family Transmission Reexamined.” The Journal of Politics 71 (3): 782–799.10.1017/S0022381609090719Search in Google Scholar

Kholodilin, Konstantin A., Maximilian Podstawski, and Boriss Siliverstovs. 2010. “Do Google Searches Help in Nowcasting Private Consumption? A Real-Time Evidence for the US <https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp997.html>.” Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin <https://ideas.repec.org/s/diw/diwwpp.html> 99710.2139/ssrn.1615453Search in Google Scholar

Klofstad, Casey A., Rose McDermott, and Peter K. Hatemi. 2013. “The Dating Preferences of Liberals and Conservatives.” Political Behavior 35 (3): 519–538.10.1007/s11109-012-9207-zSearch in Google Scholar

Krupenkin, Masha. 2018. “Does Partisanship Affect Compliance with Government Recommendations?” Technical report, Working Paper.10.2139/ssrn.3290237Search in Google Scholar

Krupenkin, Masha, Shawndra Hill, and David Rothschild. 2018. “Partisanship and Risky Financial Decisions.” Technical report, Working Paper.Search in Google Scholar

Kunda, Ziva. 1987. “Motivated Inference: Self-Serving Generation and Evaluation of Causal Theories.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53 (4): 636.10.4324/9780203496398-31Search in Google Scholar

Lane, Robert Edwards. 1962. Political Ideology: Why the American Common Man Believes What he Does. Oxford, England: Free Press of Glencoe.Search in Google Scholar

Lavine, Howard G., Christopher D. Johnston, and Marco R. Steenbergen. 2012. The Ambivalent Partisan: How Critical Loyalty Promotes Democracy. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199772759.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Lawrence, Eric, John Sides, and Henry Farrell. 2010. “Self-Segregation or deliberation? Blog readership, participation, and Polarization in American Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 8 (1): 141–157.10.1017/S1537592709992714Search in Google Scholar

Layman, Geoffrey C., Thomas M. Carsey, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz. 2006. “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences.” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 83–110.10.1146/annurev.polisci.9.070204.105138Search in Google Scholar

Lelkes, Y. 2018. “Affective Polarization and Ideological Sorting: A Reciprocal, Albeit Weak, Relationship.” The Forum 16 (1): 67–79.10.1515/for-2018-0005Search in Google Scholar

Lelkes, Yphtach, Gaurav Sood, and Shanto Iyengar. 2017. “The Hostile Audience: The Effect of Access to Broadband Internet on Partisan Affect.” American Journal of Political Science 61 (1): 5–20.10.1111/ajps.12237Search in Google Scholar

Lerman, Amy E., Meredith L. Sadin, and Samuel Trachtman. 2017. “Policy Uptake as Political Behavior: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act.” American Political Science Review 111 (4): 755–770.10.1017/S0003055417000272Search in Google Scholar

Levendusky, Matthew S. 2010. “Clearer Cues, More Consistent Voters: A Benefit of Elite Polarization.” Political Behavior 32 (1): 111–131.10.1007/s11109-009-9094-0Search in Google Scholar

Lijphart, Arend. 1969. “Consociational Democracy.” World Politics 21 (2): 207–225.10.2307/j.ctt1w1vkwd.7Search in Google Scholar

Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139032490Search in Google Scholar

Lord, Charles G., Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper. 1979. “Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37 (11): 2098.10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2098Search in Google Scholar

Mason, Lilliana. 2015. “‘I Disrespectfully Agree’: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (1): 128–145.10.1111/ajps.12089Search in Google Scholar

McCarty, Nolan, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2016. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

McConnell, Allen R., and Jill M. Leibold. 2001. “Relations among the Implicit Association Test, Discriminatory Behavior, and Explicit Measures of Racial Attitudes.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 37 (5): 435–442.10.1006/jesp.2000.1470Search in Google Scholar

McConnell, Christopher, Yotam Margalit, Neil Malhotra, and Matthew Levendusky. 2018. “The Economic Consequences of Partisanship in a Polarized Era.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (1): 5–18.10.1111/ajps.12330Search in Google Scholar

Muste, Christopher P. 2014. “Reframing Polarization: Social Groups and ‘Culture Wars’.” PS: Political Science & Politics 47 (2): 432–442.10.1017/S1049096514000353Search in Google Scholar

New York Times. Facts & figures: 43 percent of republicans think obama is muslim.Search in Google Scholar

Nicholson, Stephen P., Chelsea M. Coe, Jason Emory, and Anna V. Song. 2016. “The Politics of Beauty: The Effects of Partisan Bias on Physical Attractiveness.” Political Behavior 38 (4): 883–898.10.1007/s11109-016-9339-7Search in Google Scholar

Niemi, Richard G., and M. Kent Jennings. 1991. “Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification.” American Journal of Political Science 35: 970–988.10.2307/2111502Search in Google Scholar

Page, Benjamin I., and Calvin C. Jones. 1979. “Reciprocal Effects of Policy Preferences, Party Loyalties and the Vote.” American Political Science Review 73 (4): 1071–1089.10.2307/1953990Search in Google Scholar

Panagopoulos, Costas, Donald P. Green, Jonathan Krasno, Michael Schwam-Baird, Eric Moore, and Kyle Endres. 2016. “Risky Business: Does Corporate Political Giving Affect Consumer Behavior?” In Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia. http://rubenson.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/10/Panagopoulos-etal.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

Prior, Markus. 2007. Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139878425Search in Google Scholar

Prior, Markus, and Arthur Lupia. 2008. “Money, Time, and Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Quick Recall and Political Learning Skills.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (1): 169–183.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00306.xSearch in Google Scholar

Prior, Markus, Gaurav Sood, and Kabir Khanna. 2015. “You Cannot be Serious: The Impact of Accuracy Incentives on Partisan Bias in Reports of Economic Perceptions.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10 (4): 489–518.10.1561/100.00014127Search in Google Scholar

Sears, David O. 1971. Review of K. P. Langton: “Political Socialization.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1969; R. E.Dawson, & K. Prewitt: “Political Socialization.” Boston, MA: Little Brown and Co., 1969; and D. Easton, & J. Dennis: “Children in the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy.” New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1969. In Midwest Journal of Political Science 15: 154–160.10.2307/2110257Search in Google Scholar

Stonecash, Jeff, Mark D. Brewer, and Mack D. Mariani. 2003. Diverging Parties: Social Change, Realignment, and Party Polarization. New York, NY: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Sunstein, C. R. 2017. #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400884711Search in Google Scholar

Taber, Charles S., and Milton Lodge. 2006. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 50 (3): 755–769.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.xSearch in Google Scholar

Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations 33 (47): 74.Search in Google Scholar

Tajfel, Henri, Michael G. Billig, Robert P. Bundy, and Claude Flament. 1971. “Social Categorization and Intergroup Behaviour.” European Journal of Social Psychology 1 (2): 149–178.10.1002/ejsp.2420010202Search in Google Scholar

Tedin, Kent L. 1974. “The Influence of Parents on the Political Attitudes of Adolescents.” American Political Science Review 68 (4): 1579–1592.10.2307/1959943Search in Google Scholar

Theodoridis, Alexander G. 2017. “Me, Myself, and (i), (d), or (r)? Partisanship and Political Cognition Through the Lens of Implicit Identity.” The Journal of Politics 79 (4): 1253–1267.10.1086/692738Search in Google Scholar

Transue, John E. 2007. “Identity Salience, Identity Acceptance, and Racial Policy Attitudes: American National Identity as a Uniting Force.” American Journal of Political Science 51 (1): 78–91.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00238.xSearch in Google Scholar

Westwood, Sean J., Shanto Iyengar, Stefaan Walgrave, Rafael Leonisio, Luis Miller, and Oliver Strijbis. 2015. “The Tie that Divides: Cross-National Evidence of the Primacy of Partyism.” European Journal of Political Research 57: 333–354.10.1111/1475-6765.12228Search in Google Scholar

Wittenbrink, Bernd, Charles M. Judd, and Bernadette Park. 1997. “Evidence for Racial Prejudice at the Implicit Level and its Relationship with Questionnaire Measures.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72 (2): 262.10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.262Search in Google Scholar

Wu, Lynn, and Erik Brynjolfsson. 2015. “The Future of Prediction: How Google Searches Foreshadow Housing Prices and Sales.” In Economic Analysis of the Digital Economy, edited by Avi Goldfarb, Shane M. Greenstein, and Catherine E. Tucker, 89–118. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226206981.003.0003Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2018-6-9

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 3.10.2023 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/for-2018-0003/html
Scroll to top button