The Four Faces of Partisan Affect

• In Event: Lightning Round: Research in Five: Graduate Students III

Abstract

A recurring question in the literature on the rise of affective polarization is whether it represents in-party favoritism or out-party hatred. A proliferation of behavioral experiments and observational treatments have not added up to a clear answer. In contrast to previous work, I argue that which form partisan prejudice takes on is heterogeneous within populations and over time and it would be most productive to capture this heterogeneity. To examine configurations of partisan affect, I employ a latent profile analysis on American National Election Study data and find that four configurations of partisan affect exist: neutrality, in-party favoritism, out-party hatred, and both. I further find that existing theories of affective polarization only explain people who display both in-party warmth and out-party hatred.

Author

• Joseph Phillips, Pennsylvania State University