Political Party Identification and Intergroup Attitudes: Exploring the Effects of Mediated and Direct Contact With the Opposing Party During a Presidential Campaign

• In Event: Top Papers in Intergroup Communication

Abstract

From the theoretical perspective of intergroup contact (Pettigrew,1998), this study examined the indirect effects of outgroup partisan media exposure (Fox News for Democrats; MSNBC and CNN for Republicans) and interpersonal contact with outgroup members on intergroup bias and intergroup competition through party identity, a mediating mechanism explaining the relationships between the contact-attitude link (e.g., Mummendey, Kessler, Klink, & Mielke, 1999; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The hypothesized model was tested for both Democrats and Republicans Bootstrap analyses with 5,000 iterations were conducted using PROCESS (Model 4, Hayes, 2013). Results indicate that mediated and direct contact with “the other side” indirectly influenced group members’ intergroup bias in favor of their own party and tendency to adopt a social competition strategy through an increased political party identity. That is, intergroup contact did not diminish bias or competition. It actually increased it, not directly but through enhanced party identity.

Authors

• Mei-Chen Lin, Kent State University

• Paul Haridakis, Kent State U

• Yan Bing Zhang, U of Kansas