Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-vfh8q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T17:13:21.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tribalism in America: Behavioral Experiments on Affective Polarization in the Trump Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2020

Sam Whitt Open the ORCID record for Sam Whitt [Opens in a new window] ,
Alixandra B. Yanus ,
Brian McDonald ,
John Graeber ,
Mark Setzler ,
Gordon Ballingrud  and
Martin Kifer
Sam Whitt*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
Alixandra B. Yanus
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
Brian McDonald
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
John Graeber
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
Mark Setzler
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
Gordon Ballingrud
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
Martin Kifer
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, One University Parkway, High Point, NC27268, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: swhitt@highpoint.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our research speaks to the ongoing debate over the extent and severity of partisan political divisions in American society. We employ behavioral experiments to probe for affective polarization using dictator, trust, and public goods games with party identification treatments. We find that subjects who identify politically with the Democratic or Republican Party and ideologically as liberals and conservatives display stronger affective biases than politically unaffiliated and ideological moderates. Partisan subjects are less altruistic, less trusting, and less likely to contribute to a mutually beneficial public good when paired with members of the opposing party. Compared to other behavioral studies, our research suggests increasing levels of affective polarization in the way Americans relate to one another politically, bordering on the entrenched divisions one commonly sees in conflict or post-conflict societies. To overcome affective polarization, our research points to inter-group contact as a mechanism for increasing trust and bridging political divides.

Keywords

Affective polarizationpartisanshipparty identificationideologyUnited Statesbehavioral experimentintergroup contact
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , Winter 2021 , pp. 247 - 259
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Balliet, Daniel, Wu, Junhui and De Dreu, Carsten KW. 2014. “Ingroup Favoritism in Cooperation: A Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 140(6): 1556.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bauer, Michal, Blattman, Christopher, Chytilová, Julie, Henrich, Joseph, Miguel, Edward and Mitts, Tamar. 2016. “Can War Foster Cooperation?.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30(3): 249–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlin, Ryan E. and Love, Gregory J.. 2013. “The politics of interpersonal trust and reciprocity: An experimental approach.” Political Behavior 35(1): 43–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlin, Ryan E. and Love, Gregory J.. 2018. “Political competition, partisanship and interpersonal trust in electoral democracies.” British Journal of Political Science 48(1): 115–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, Jung-Kyoo and Bowles, Samuel. 2007. “The Coevolution of Parochial Altruism and War.” science 318(5850): 636–40.Google ScholarPubMed
Engel, Christoph. 2011. “Dictator Games: A Meta Study.” Experimental Economics 14(4): 583–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P., Abrams, Samuel J. and Pope, Jeremy C.. 2005. Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Fowler, James H. and Kam, Cindy D.. 2007. Beyond the Self: Social identity, Altruism, and Political Participation.” The Journal of Politics 69(3): 813–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gidron, Noam, Adams, James and Horne, Will. 2019. “Toward a comparative research agenda on affective polarization in mass publics.” APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter 29: 30–6.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc and Weiler, Jonathan. 2018. Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America’s Great Divide. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto and Westwood, Sean J.. 2015. “Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59(3): 690–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Lelkes, Yphtach, Levendusky, Matthew, Malhotra, Neil and Westwood, Sean J.. 2019. “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States.” Annual Review of Political Science 22(1): 129–46.Google Scholar
Johnson, Noel D. and Mislin, Alexandra A.. 2011. “Trust Games: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Economic Psychology 32(5): 865–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lelkes, Yphtach. 2019. “Policy over party: comparing the effects of candidate ideology and party on affective polarization.” Political Science Research and Methods (2019): 1–8.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew S. 2018. “Americans, not partisans: Can priming American national identity reduce affective polarization?.” The Journal of Politics 80(1): 59–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven and Ziblatt, Daniel. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York: Broadway Books.Google Scholar
Mason, Liliana. 2018. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, Nolan, Poole, Keith T. and Rosenthal, Howard. 2016. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F. and Tropp, Linda R.. 2013. “Does Intergroup Contact Reduce Prejudice? Recent Meta-Analytic Findings.” In Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press, 103–124.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert. 2001. “Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences.” Canadian Journal of Policy Research 2(1): 41–51.Google Scholar
Stimson, James. 2018. Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, ed. 2010. Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Vol. 7. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Westwood, Sean J., Iyengar, Shanto, Walgrave, Stefaan, Leonisio, Rafael, Miller, Luis and Strijbis, Oliver. 2018. “The Tie that Divides: Cross-national Evidence of the Primacy of Partyism.” European Journal of Political Research 57(2): 333–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitt, Sam, Yanus, Alixandra B., McDonald, Brian, Graeber, John, Setzler, Mark, Ballingrud, Gordon and Kifer, Martin. 2020. “Replication Data for: Tribalism in America: Behavioral Experiments on Affective Polarization in the Trump Era.” Harvard Dataverse. doi: 10.7910/DVN/6UALO0 Google Scholar
Zelmer, Jennifer. 2003. “Linear Public Goods Experiments: A Meta-Analysis.” Experimental Economics 6(3): 299–310.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Whitt et al. supplementary material

Whitt et al. supplementary material

Download Whitt et al. supplementary material(File)
File 188 KB