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Through the ideology of the beholder: how ideology shapes perceptions of partisan groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2022

Jonathan Homola Open the ORCID record for Jonathan Homola [Opens in a new window] ,
Jon C. Rogowski ,
Betsy Sinclair ,
Michelle Torres ,
Patrick D. Tucker  and
Steven W. Webster Open the ORCID record for Steven W. Webster [Opens in a new window]
Jonathan Homola
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, USA
Jon C. Rogowski
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Betsy Sinclair
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Washington University, St Louis, USA
Michelle Torres
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Rice University, Houston, USA
Patrick D. Tucker
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, USA
Steven W. Webster*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: swwebste@iu.edu
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Abstract

Growing attitudinal and affective differences across party lines and increasing social polarization are often attributed to the strengthening of partisanship as a social identity. Scholars have paid less attention to personal preferences as a contributor to these phenomena. Our focus is on how citizens’ policy beliefs—their operational ideologies—are associated with their views of partisan groups. We examine our perspective with two studies. In the first, we find that the attribution of ideologically extreme political views to an individual's peer significantly reduces interest in interpersonal interaction but find limited evidence that partisan group membership alone induces social polarization. In the second, we show that citizens’ policy views are strongly associated with their perceptions of their own partisan group as well as their counterpartisans. Together, our results have important implications for understanding the consequences of increased polarization and partisan antipathy in contemporary politics.

Keywords

American politicspolitical psychologypublic opinion
Type
Original Article
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 275 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Political Science Association

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Supplementary material: Link

Homola et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GB15Y5
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Homola et al. supplementary material

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