TY - JOUR
T1 - Affective Polarization and Political Belief Systems
T2 - The Role of Political Identity and the Content and Structure of Political Beliefs
AU - Turner-Zwinkels, Felicity
AU - van Noord, Jochem
AU - Kesberg, Rebekka
AU - García-Sánchez, Efraín
AU - Brandt, Mark J.
AU - Kuppens, Toon
AU - Easterbrook, Matthew J.
AU - Smets, Lien
AU - Gorska, Paulina
AU - Marchlewska, Marta
AU - Turner-Zwinkels, Tomas
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is financially supported by the NORFACE Joint Research Programme on Democratic Governance in a Turbulent Age and co-funded by NWO, ESRC, AEI, NSC, FWO, and the European Commission through Horizon 2020 under grant agreement number 822166.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - We investigate the extent that political identity, political belief content (i.e., attitude stances), and political belief system structure (i.e., relations among attitudes) differences are associated with affective polarization (i.e., viewing ingroup partisans positively and outgroup partisans negatively) in two multinational, cross-sectional studies (Study 1 N = 4,152, Study 2 N = 29,994). First, we found a large, positive association between political identity and group liking—participants liked their ingroup substantially more than their outgroup. Second, political belief system content and structure had opposite associations with group liking: Sharing similar belief system content with an outgroup was associated with more outgroup liking, but similarity with the ingroup was associated with less ingroup liking. The opposite pattern was found for political belief system structure. Thus, affective polarization was greatest when belief system content similarity was low and structure similarity was high.
AB - We investigate the extent that political identity, political belief content (i.e., attitude stances), and political belief system structure (i.e., relations among attitudes) differences are associated with affective polarization (i.e., viewing ingroup partisans positively and outgroup partisans negatively) in two multinational, cross-sectional studies (Study 1 N = 4,152, Study 2 N = 29,994). First, we found a large, positive association between political identity and group liking—participants liked their ingroup substantially more than their outgroup. Second, political belief system content and structure had opposite associations with group liking: Sharing similar belief system content with an outgroup was associated with more outgroup liking, but similarity with the ingroup was associated with less ingroup liking. The opposite pattern was found for political belief system structure. Thus, affective polarization was greatest when belief system content similarity was low and structure similarity was high.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85165619192
U2 - 10.1177/01461672231183935
DO - 10.1177/01461672231183935
M3 - Article
C2 - 37475668
SN - 0146-1672
VL - 51
SP - 222
EP - 238
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
IS - 2
ER -