“Everyone’s Doing It:” How Political Polarization is Inflated by Social Messages

• In Event: Partisan Cues

Abstract

Today’s political climate is charged with intense affective polarization that seems to have little root in issue polarization among the public. I argue that this difference between affective and issue polarization exists because of social pressure—today’s strong culture of political polarization acts as a social norm, driving those especially attuned to social messages to report polarization without actually being polarized on issues. This suggests that at least part of our empirical findings on affective polarization are driven by social pressure—or an acquiescence to a norm of polarization. My argument is tested with both observational and experimental data: a set of analyses of 2008 American National Election Studies (ANES) data and two survey experiments with samples from Survey Sampling International (SSI) and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (Mturk). Findings indeed suggest that we have been overestimating the levels of affective polarization among the public. Further, they imply a “snowball effect” of political climates—a culture of polarization, for example, will produce more polarization.

Author

• Elizabeth Chase Connors, University of South Carolina