Not My Party? Negative Affect, Not Negative Partisanship

• In Event: Partisanship, Affect, and Polarization

Abstract

Scholars have noted a rise in the affectively negative nature of partisan polarization in the United States (Abramowitz and Webster 2016; Iyengar and Westwood 2014). And, scholars and conventional wisdom show heightened dislike of both parties (Groenendyk 2013; Klar and Krupnikov 2016; Smith 2015). Recent work in social psychology has highlighted differences between affirmational and negational identity. Affirmational identity refers to the groups with which individuals associate, while negational identity refers to the groups with which they do not identify. This distinction has been show to substantially impact the nature and implication of the identity (Zhong, Galinsky and Unzueta, 2008; Zhong, Phillips, Leonardelli and Galinsky, 2008). Using both explicit and implicit measures, we show that, contrary to the scholarly and conventional wisdom, party identity in the United States does not appear to be largely negative in nature for most partisans. Notably, the extent to which partisan identity is negational appears to be related to affect regarding one's in-party rather than one's out-party. This work has substantial implications for our understanding and future examination of party identity.

Authors

• Alexander George Theodoridis, University of California, Merced

• Carlee Beth Hawkins, University of Illinois Springfield