Political sectarianism in America

Predictors and consequences of intellectual humility

In a time of societal acrimony, psychological scientists have turned to a possible antidote — intellectual humility. Interest in intellectual humility comes from diverse research areas, including researchers studying leadership and organizational behaviour, personality science, positive psychology, judgement and decision-making, education, culture, and intergroup and interpersonal relationships. In this Review, we synthesize empirical approaches to the study of intellectual humility. We critically examine diverse approaches to defining and measuring intellectual humility and identify the common element: a meta-cognitive ability to recognize the limitations of one’s beliefs and knowledge. After reviewing the validity of different measurement approaches, we highlight factors that influence intellectual humility, from relationship security to social coordination. Furthermore, we review empirical evidence concerning the benefits and drawbacks of intellectual humility for personal decision-making, interpersonal relationships, scientific enterprise and society writ large. We conclude by outlining initial attempts to boost intellectual humility, foreshadowing possible scalable interventions that can turn intellectual humility into a core interpersonal, institutional and cultural value.

Intellectual humility involves acknowledging the limitations of one’s knowledge and that one’s beliefs might be incorrect. In this Review, Porter and colleagues synthesize concepts of intellectual humility across fields and describe the complex interplay between intellectual humility and related individual and societal factors.

Understanding Evaluations of Kamala Harris in 2020: Political Ideology Qualifies Perceived Communality Effects when Communal Cues are Present

Women of color (vs. White women) are underrepresented in the United States government. Identifying factors that affect evaluations of these women is important to understand their underrepresentation. Deviating from communal expectations contributes to backlash against women. Being perceived as prioritizing communality thus appears key for women to receive support. Little work, however, has examined this relation in actual politicians and how perceiver political ideology may affect it. We examined how gendered trait inferences and political ideology affected evaluations of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color elected to the executive branch, before the 2020 election. People perceived Harris as more agentic than communal (Studies 1–2). Communal trait inferences and having a more liberal political ideology each positively related to evaluations of Harris. More liberal relative to more conservative perceivers had weaker positive communality effects when evaluating her expected success (Studies 1–2) and when a description conveyed Harris’s communality (vs. agency; Study 2). These findings highlight communality effects on evaluations of Harris and suggest a context under which she was likely more supported by co-partisans. Moreover, these studies identify potential sources of bias toward female candidates of color, illustrating a need for gendered trait inferences to be thoroughly considered in campaign strategies. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843221104383 .

Ideology and COVID-19 Vaccination Intention: Perceptual Mediators and Communication Moderators

Widespread COVID-19 vaccination is critical to slow the spread of the illness. This study investigates how political ideology is associated with COVID-19 vaccine intention via perceived effectiveness of the vaccine, perceived side effects, and perceived severity of the illness, three key aspects of the Health Belief Model (HBM). This study also examines how partisan information flow moderates the effects of ideology on these three HBM components. Using survey data collected from two battleground states in the 2020 election (N = 1849), regression, mediation and moderation analyses revealed that conservatives were less likely to intend to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and this association was significantly mediated by perceived effectiveness and perceived side effects of vaccination, as well as perceived severity of COVID-19. In addition, partisanship of news sources and discussion partners were significant moderators of ideology's association with perceived vaccine effectiveness, with conservatives viewing COVID-19 vaccination as less effective if they were frequently exposed to liberal news, and if they had frequent conversations with fellow conservatives. This suggests boomerang effects for cross-cutting mass media exposure, and reinforcement effect for interpersonal communication. Implications for efforts to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake are discussed, including tailored and targeted campaign strategies.

Negative partisanship is not more prevalent than positive partisanship

The dominant narrative among scholars and political pundits characterizes American partisanship as overwhelmingly negative, portraying citizens as more repelled by the opposing party than attached to their own party. To assess the valence of partisan identity, we use various measures collected from several new and existing nationally representative surveys and behavioural outcomes obtained from two experiments. Our findings consistently depart from the negative partisanship narrative. For the majority of Americans, partisanship is either equally positive and negative or more positive than negative. Only partisan leaners stand out as negative partisans. We pair these observational findings with experimental data that differentiate between positive group behaviour and negative group behaviour in the partisan context. We find that the behavioural manifestations of party identity similarly include both positive and negative biases in balance, reinforcing our conclusion that descriptions of partisanship as primarily negative are exaggerated.

Negativity and Political Behavior: A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of Negative Voting in Contemporary Democracies

Recent developments in Western societies have motivated a growing consideration of the role of negativity in public opinion and political behavior research. In this article, we review the scant (and largely disconnected) scientific literature on negativity and political behavior, merging contributions from social psychology, public opinion, and electoral research, with a view on developing an integrated theoretical framework for the study of negative voting in contemporary democracies. We highlight that the tendency toward negative voting is driven by three partly overlapping components, namely, (1) an instrumental-rational component characterized by retrospective performance evaluations and rationalization mechanisms, (2) an ideological component grounded on long-lasting political identities, and (3) an affective component, motivated by (negative) attitudes toward parties and candidates. By blueprinting the systematic relationships between negative voting and each of these components in turn, and suggesting multiple research paths, this article aims to stimulate future studies on negative voting in multi-party parliamentary systems to motivate a better understanding of the implications of negativity in voting behavior in contemporary democracies.

The Electoral Consequences of Affective Polarization? Negative Voting in the 2020 US Presidential Election

About one third of American voters cast a vote more "against" than "for" a candidate in the 2020 Presidential election. This pattern, designated by negative voting, has been initially understood by rational choice scholarship as a product of cognitive dissonance and/or retrospective evaluations. This article revisits this concept through the affective polarization framework in the light of the rise of political sectarianism in American society. Based on an original CAWI survey fielded after the 2020 election, our regression analysis demonstrates that the predicted probability of casting a negative vote significantly increases among individuals for whom out-candidate hate outweighs in-candidate love. Negative voting is less prevalent among partisans as their higher levels of in-group affection can offset out-group contempt. By asserting the enduring relevance of negative voting in American presidential elections, we aim at stimulating further research and discussion of its implications for democratic representation.

Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans' support for partisan violence

Scholars, policy makers, and the general public have expressed growing concern about the possibility of large-scale political violence in the United States. Prior research substantiates these worries, as studies reveal that many American partisans support the use of violence against rival partisans. Here, we propose that support for partisan violence is based in part on greatly exaggerated perceptions of rival partisans’ support for violence. We also predict that correcting these inaccurate “metaperceptions” can reduce partisans’ own support for partisan violence. We test these hypotheses in a series of preregistered, nationally representative, correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies (total n = 4,741) collected both before and after the 2020 US presidential election and the 2021 US Capitol attack. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that both Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of their rival partisans’ support for violence and willingness to engage in violence were very inaccurate, with estimates ranging from 245 to 442% higher than actual levels. Further, we found that a brief, informational correction of these misperceptions reduced support for violence by 34% (Study 3) and willingness to engage in violence by 44% (Study 4). In the latter study, a follow-up survey revealed that the correction continued to significantly reduce support for violence approximately 1 mo later. Together, these results suggest that support for partisan violence in the United States stems in part from systematic overestimations of rival partisans’ support for violence and that correcting these misperceptions can durably reduce support for partisan violence in the mass public.

Algorithmic Political Bias in Artificial Intelligence Systems

Some artificial intelligence (AI) systems can display algorithmic bias, i.e. they may produce outputs that unfairly discriminate against people based on their social identity. Much research on this topic focuses on algorithmic bias that disadvantages people based on their gender or racial identity. The related ethical problems are significant and well known. Algorithmic bias against other aspects of people’s social identity, for instance, their political orientation, remains largely unexplored. This paper argues that algorithmic bias against people’s political orientation can arise in some of the same ways in which algorithmic gender and racial biases emerge. However, it differs importantly from them because there are (in a democratic society) strong social norms against gender and racial biases. This does not hold to the same extent for political biases. Political biases can thus more powerfully influence people, which increases the chances that these biases become embedded in algorithms and makes algorithmic political biases harder to detect and eradicate than gender and racial biases even though they all can produce similar harm. Since some algorithms can now also easily identify people’s political orientations against their will, these problems are exacerbated. Algorithmic political bias thus raises substantial and distinctive risks that the AI community should be aware of and examine.

Firm partisan positioning, polarization, and risk communication: Examining voluntary disclosures on COVID-19

Research Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic will rank among the greatest challenges many executives will have faced and not only due to the operational challenges it posed. Upon entering the U.S. context, the disease was immediately politically polarized, with clear partisan splits forming in risk perceptions of the disease unrelated to science. We exploit this context to examine whether firms' partisan positioning affects whether and how they communicate risk to their investors on a polarized public policy issue. To do so, we examine the covariation between firms' disclosure of COVID-19 risks and the partisanship of their political giving. Our analysis of earnings call and campaign contribution data for the S&P 500 reveals a positive association between a firm's contributions to Democrats and its disclosure of COVID-19 risks.

Managerial Summary

From its onset in the United States, attitudes toward and discourse around the COVID-19 pandemic was heavily politicized and perceptions of the disease's risks were seen as more serious by Democratic-identifying individuals than Republican identifiers. In this study, we examine whether this pattern also holds for U.S. publicly traded firms, who can also stake out a political position through their corporate political action committee campaign contributions. In analyses of earnings call transcripts from the first quarter of 2020, we show that the more Republican-leaning (Democrat-leaning) a firm's campaign contributions are, the less (more) likely it was to voluntarily disclose risks related to COVID-19. We argue that these findings hold implications for parties interested in interpreting firm's risk disclosures on politically polarized issues.

Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort

Achieving personal growth often requires experiencing discomfort. What if instead of tolerating discomfort (e.g., feeling awkward or uncomfortable), people actively sought it out? Because discomfort is usually experienced immediately and is easy to detect, we suggest that seeking discomfort as a signal of growth can increase motivation. Five experiments (total N = 2,163 adults) tested this prediction across various areas of personal growth: taking improvisation classes to increase self-confidence, engaging in expressive writing to process difficult emotions, becoming informed about the COVID-19 health crisis, opening oneself to opposing political viewpoints, and learning about gun violence. Across these areas of personal development, seeking discomfort as a signal of self-growth motivated engagement and increased perceived goal achievement relative to standard instructions. Consistent with our theorizing, results showed that these effects occurred only in areas of personal growth that cause immediate discomfort.

Current research overstates American support for political violence

SignificanceRecent political events show that members of extreme political groups support partisan violence, and survey evidence supposedly shows widespread public support. We show, however, that, after accounting for survey-based measurement error, support for partisan violence is far more limited. Prior estimates overstate support for political violence because of random responding by disengaged respondents and because of a reliance on hypothetical questions about violence in general instead of questions on specific acts of political violence. These same issues also cause the magnitude of the relationship between previously identified correlates and partisan violence to be overstated. As policy makers consider interventions designed to dampen support for violence, our results provide critical information about the magnitude of the problem.

Party Politics vs. Grievance Politics: Competing Modes of Representative Democracy

As a vast literature on political disaffection, populism, "pitchfork politics," and the emergence of an "age of anger" testifies, the nature of democratic politics and the socio-political context in which it operates appear to have shifted sharply during the last decade. This is reflected in the rise of challenger parties, the election of unorthodox politicians, and widespread concern regarding the "crisis," "death," or "end" of democracy. Existing analyses have, however, understandably adopted a conventional model of party-based representative politics as their main interpretive lens or reference point to make sense of these changes. This article adopts a far bolder position. It suggests that a new form of "grievance politics" has emerged that constitutes a distinct and novel species of representative democracy. Grievance politics is defined by the fuelling and funneling of negative emotions and various blame-based political strategies which explicitly challenge and confound many of the core principles and values that have traditionally underpinned conventional conceptions of party politics. It is the tension between party politics and grievance politics-and their contemporary co-existence as competing modes of political representation-which this article seeks to underline and through this, to develop a clearer understanding of possible futures for representative democracy.

Fallibility Salience Increases Intellectual Humility: Implications for People's Willingness to Investigate Political Misinformation

The spread of online political misinformation has ramifications for political polarization, trust in political systems, and the functioning of democracy. In this article, we advance findings on investigative behaviors-actions aimed at determining the veracity of information encountered online-in response to political misinformation. Across three preregistered studies (N = 889), we find that investigative behaviors increase accuracy discernment of political misinformation (Study 1), that intellectual humility reliably predicts investigative behaviors in this context (Study 2), and test a novel fallibility salience manipulation to increase intellectual humility (Study 3). We discuss the implications of these findings for reducing the impacts of political misinformation.

Troll and divide: the language of online polarization

The affective animosity between the political left and right has grown steadily in many countries over the past few years, posing a threat to democratic practices and public health. There is a rising concern over the role that "bad actors" or trolls may play in the polarization of online networks. In this research, we examined the processes by which trolls may sow intergroup conflict through polarized rhetoric. We developed a dictionary to assess online polarization by measuring language associated with communications that display partisan bias in their diffusion. We validated the polarized language dictionary in 4 different contexts and across multiple time periods. The polarization dictionary made out-of-set predictions, generalized to both new political contexts (#BlackLivesMatter) and a different social media platform (Reddit), and predicted partisan differences in public opinion polls about COVID-19. Then we analyzed tweets from a known Russian troll source (N = 383,510) and found that their use of polarized language has increased over time. We also compared troll tweets from 3 countries (N = 79,833) and found that they all utilize more polarized language than regular Americans (N = 1,507,300) and trolls have increased their use of polarized rhetoric over time. We also find that polarized language is associated with greater engagement, but this association only holds for politically engaged users (both trolls and regular users). This research clarifies how trolls leverage polarized language and provides an open-source, simple tool for exploration of polarized communications on social media.

Partisanship, Messaging, and the COVID-19 Vaccine: Evidence From Survey Experiments

Purpose

To investigate partisanship in COVID-19 attitudes, and assess partisan or scientific messaging effects on COVID-19 vaccination intentions.

Design

Two-wave survey with two-arm randomized experiment.

Setting

Recruited Pennsylvania residents online.

Sample

2037 (May 2020) and 1577 (October 2020) Pennsylvania residents, aged 18–94 years.

Intervention

Respondents saw messaging that presented either President Trump or scientists endorsing the vaccine, then reported their vaccination intentions.

Measures

Likert scale items measuring COVID-19 attitudes (May), including mask wearing and vaccination intentions (May and October).

Analysis

Partisan differences in attitudes were analyzed by chi-square; differences in support for mask wearing and vaccination intentions were also analyzed by Mann–Whitney U. The messaging experiment was analyzed by chi-square, Mann–Whitney U, and survey-weighted multivariate logistic regression.

Results

Significant partisan differences were found in all attitudes. The partisan split in support for mask wearing increased from May to October, whereas the split in vaccination intentions decreased. Compared to partisan messaging, scientific messaging increased overall odds of intending to vaccinate by 32% in May (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=1.32, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.06-1.65), and increased odds among Democrats by 142% in October (AOR = 2.42, CI = 1.29-4.55). Scientific messaging had no significant effect on independents or Republicans.

Conclusion

Partisan COVID-19 attitudes were widespread and persistent. Partisan endorsement of the vaccine positively influenced those with congruent beliefs, while scientific messaging produced consistent effects across political affiliation.

Political coherence and certainty as drivers of interpersonal liking over and above similarity

Affective polarization and political segregation have become a serious threat to democratic societies. One standard explanation for these phenomena is that people like and prefer interacting with similar others. However, similarity may not be the only driver of interpersonal liking in the political domain, and other factors, yet to be uncovered, could play an important role. Here, we hypothesized that beyond the effect of similarity, people show greater preference for individuals with politically coherent and confident opinions. To test this idea, we performed two behavioral studies consisting of one-shot face-to-face pairwise interactions. We found that people with ambiguous or ambivalent views were nonreciprocally attracted to confident and coherent ingroups. A third experimental study confirmed that politically coherent and confident profiles are rated as more attractive than targets with ambiguous or ambivalent opinions. Overall, these findings unfold the key drivers of the affability between people who discuss politics.

The role of generalizability in moral and political psychology

The aim of the social and behavioral sciences is to understand human behavior across a wide array of contexts. Our theories often make sweeping claims about human nature, assuming that our ancestors or offspring will be prone to the same biases and preferences. Yet we gloss over the fact that our research is often based in a single temporal context with a limited set of stimuli. Political and moral psychology are domains in which the context and stimuli are likely to matter a great deal (Van Bavel, Mende-Siedlecki, Brady, & Reinero, 2016). In response to Yarkoni (see BBS issue), we delve into topics related to political and moral psychology that likely depend on features of the research. These topics include understanding differences between liberals and conservatives, when people are willing to sacrifice someone to save others, the behavior of political leaders, and the dynamics of intergroup conflict.

Politicians polarize and experts depolarize public support for COVID-19 management policies across countries

Political polarization impeded public support for policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19, much as polarization hinders responses to other contemporary challenges. Unlike previous theory and research that focused on the United States, the present research examined the effects of political elite cues and affective polarization on support for policies to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in seven countries (n = 12,955): Brazil, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Across countries, cues from political elites polarized public attitudes toward COVID-19 policies. Liberal and conservative respondents supported policies proposed by ingroup politicians and parties more than the same policies from outgroup politicians and parties. Respondents disliked, distrusted, and felt cold toward outgroup political elites, whereas they liked, trusted, and felt warm toward both ingroup political elites and nonpartisan experts. This affective polarization was correlated with policy support. These findings imply that policies from bipartisan coalitions and nonpartisan experts would be less polarizing, enjoying broader public support. Indeed, across countries, policies from bipartisan coalitions and experts were more widely supported. A follow-up experiment replicated these findings among US respondents considering international vaccine distribution policies. The polarizing effects of partisan elites and affective polarization emerged across nations that vary in cultures, ideologies, and political systems. Contrary to some propositions, the United States was not exceptionally polarized. Rather, these results suggest that polarizing processes emerged simply from categorizing people into political ingroups and outgroups. Political elites drive polarization globally, but nonpartisan experts can help resolve the conflicts that arise from it.

Network loss following the 2016 Presidential Election among LGBTQ+ adults

Growing levels of political polarization in the United States have been associated with political homogeneity in the personal networks of American adults. The 2016 Presidential Election in the United States was a polarizing event that may have caused further loss of connections to alters who had different politics. Kinship may protect against loss of politically different ties. Additionally, loss of ties with different political views may be particularly pronounced among LGBTQ+ people as they are more likely to be impacted by public policy decisions compared to their heterosexual counterparts. We analyzed two waves of the University of California, Berkeley Social Networks Study's (UCNets) Main Sample and LGBTQ+ Oversample of older adults that occurred in 2015 and 2017, which provided an opportunity to assess alter loss after the 2016 Presidential Election. When evaluating all adults, we found that politically different alters were more likely to reflect kin ties than partner or friend ties. We also found that politically different kin are less likely to be dropped suggesting that kinship acts as a moderating effect of different political views on alter loss. LGBTQ+ respondents were more likely to drop kin alters with different political views than their cisgender heterosexual counterparts. We discuss the implications these results have for political polarization interventions as well as the social networks impact politics can have on LGBTQ+ individuals.

Receptiveness to Opposing Views: Conceptualization and Integrative Review

The present article reviews a growing body of research on receptiveness to opposing views-the willingness to access, consider, and evaluate contradictory opinions in a relatively impartial manner. First, we describe the construct of receptiveness and consider how it can be measured and studied at the individual level. Next, we extend our theorizing to the interpersonal level, arguing that receptiveness in the course of any given interaction is mutually constituted by the dispositional tendencies and observable behaviors of the parties involved. We advance the argument that receptiveness should be conceptualized and studied as an interpersonal construct that emerges dynamically over the course of an interaction and is powerfully influenced by counterpart behavior. This interpersonal conceptualization of receptiveness has important implications for intervention design and raises a suite of novel research questions.

Morally Homogeneous Networks and Radicalism

Online radicalization is among the most vexing challenges the world faces today. Here, we demonstrate that homogeneity in moral concerns results in increased levels of radical intentions. In Study 1, we find that in Gab—a right-wing extremist network—the degree of moral convergence within a cluster predicts the number of hate-speech messages members post. In Study 2, we replicate this observation in another extremist network, Incels. In Studies 3 to 5 ( N = 1,431), we demonstrate that experimentally leading people to believe that others in their hypothetical or real group share their moral views increases their radical intentions as well as willingness to fight and die for the group. Our findings highlight the role of moral convergence in radicalization, emphasizing the need for diversity of moral worldviews within social networks.

Link recommendation algorithms and dynamics of polarization in online social networks

The level of antagonism between political groups has risen in the past years. Supporters of a given party increasingly dislike members of the opposing group and avoid intergroup interactions, leading to homophilic social networks. While new connections offline are driven largely by human decisions, new connections on online social platforms are intermediated by link recommendation algorithms, e.g., "People you may know" or "Whom to follow" suggestions. The long-term impacts of link recommendation in polarization are unclear, particularly as exposure to opposing viewpoints has a dual effect: Connections with out-group members can lead to opinion convergence and prevent group polarization or further separate opinions. Here, we provide a complex adaptive-systems perspective on the effects of link recommendation algorithms. While several models justify polarization through rewiring based on opinion similarity, here we explain it through rewiring grounded in structural similarity-defined as similarity based on network properties. We observe that preferentially establishing links with structurally similar nodes (i.e., sharing many neighbors) results in network topologies that are amenable to opinion polarization. Hence, polarization occurs not because of a desire to shield oneself from disagreeable attitudes but, instead, due to the creation of inadvertent echo chambers. When networks are composed of nodes that react differently to out-group contacts, either converging or polarizing, we find that connecting structurally dissimilar nodes moderates opinions. Overall, our study sheds light on the impacts of social-network algorithms and unveils avenues to steer dynamics of radicalization and polarization in online social networks.

Interindividual cooperation mediated by partisanship complicates Madison's cure for "mischiefs of faction"

Political theorists have long argued that enlarging the political sphere to include a greater diversity of interests would cure the ills of factions in a pluralistic society. While the scope of politics has expanded dramatically over the past 75 y, polarization is markedly worse. Motivated by this paradox, we take a bottom-up approach to explore how partisan individual-level dynamics in a diverse (multidimensional) issue space can shape collective-level factionalization via an emergent dimensionality reduction. We extend a model of cultural evolution grounded in evolutionary game theory, in which individuals accumulate benefits through pairwise interactions and imitate (or learn) the strategies of successful others. The degree of partisanship determines the likelihood of learning from individuals of the opposite party. This approach captures the coupling between individual behavior, partisan-mediated opinion dynamics, and an interaction network that changes endogenously according to the evolving interests of individuals. We find that while expanding the diversity of interests can indeed improve both individual and collective outcomes, increasingly high partisan bias promotes a reduction in issue dimensionality via party-based assortment that leads to increasing polarization. When party bias becomes extreme, it also boosts interindividual cooperation, thereby further entrenching extreme polarization and creating a tug-of-war between individual cooperation and societal cohesion. These dangers of extreme partisanship are highest when individuals' interests and opinions are heavily shaped by peers and there is little independent exploration. Overall, our findings highlight the urgency to study polarization in a coupled, multilevel context.

When election expectations fail: Polarized perceptions of election legitimacy increase with accumulating evidence of election outcomes and with polarized media

The present study, conducted immediately after the 2020 presidential election in the United States, examined whether Democrats’ and Republicans’ polarized assessments of election legitimacy increased over time. In a naturalistic survey experiment, people (N = 1,236) were randomly surveyed either during the week following Election Day, with votes cast but the outcome unknown, or during the following week, after President Joseph Biden was widely declared the winner. The design unconfounded the election outcome announcement from the vote itself, allowing more precise testing of predictions derived from cognitive dissonance theory. As predicted, perceived election legitimacy increased among Democrats, from the first to the second week following Election Day, as their expected Biden win was confirmed, whereas perceived election legitimacy decreased among Republicans as their expected President Trump win was disconfirmed. From the first to the second week following Election Day, Republicans reported stronger negative emotions and weaker positive emotions while Democrats reported stronger positive emotions and weaker negative emotions. The polarized perceptions of election legitimacy were correlated with the tendencies to trust and consume polarized media. Consumption of Fox News was associated with lowered perceptions of election legitimacy over time whereas consumption of other outlets was associated with higher perceptions of election legitimacy over time. Discussion centers on the role of the media in the experience of cognitive dissonance and the implications of polarized perceptions of election legitimacy for psychology, political science, and the future of democratic society.

Negativity Spreads More than Positivity on Twitter After Both Positive and Negative Political Situations

What type of emotional language spreads further in political discourses on social media? Previous research has focused on situations that primarily elicited negative emotions, showing that negative language tended to spread further. The current project extends existing knowledge by examining the spread of emotional language in response to both predominantly positive and negative political situations. In Study 1, we examined the spread of emotional language in tweets related to the winning and losing parties in the 2016 US elections, finding that increased negativity (but not positivity) predicted content sharing in both situations. In Study 2, we compared the spread of emotional language in two separate situations: the celebration of the US Supreme Court approval of same-sex marriage (positive) and the Ferguson unrest (negative), finding again that negativity spread further. These results shed light on the nature of political discourse and engagement.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00057-7.

The complexity of human cooperation under indirect reciprocity

Indirect reciprocity (IR) is a key mechanism to understand cooperation among unrelated individuals. It involves reputations and complex information processing, arising from social interactions. By helping someone, individuals may improve their reputation, which may be shared in a population and change the predisposition of others to reciprocate in the future. The reputation of individuals depends, in turn, on social norms that define a good or bad action, offering a computational and mathematical appealing way of studying the evolution of moral systems. Over the years, theoretical and empirical research has unveiled many features of cooperation under IR, exploring norms with varying degrees of complexity and information requirements. Recent results suggest that costly reputation spread, interaction observability and empathy are determinants of cooperation under IR. Importantly, such characteristics probably impact the level of complexity and information requirements for IR to sustain cooperation. In this review, we present and discuss those recent results. We provide a synthesis of theoretical models and discuss previous conclusions through the lens of evolutionary game theory and cognitive complexity. We highlight open questions and suggest future research in this domain. This article is part of the theme issue 'The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling'.

Online Intergroup Polarization Across Political Fault Lines: An Integrative Review

We revisit the construct of political polarization and current distinctions between issue-driven and affective polarization. Based on our review of recent research on polarization from psychology, political science, and communication, we propose to treat polarization as a process that integrates the concepts of social identification (collective self-definition) with ideologically opposed camps - that is, psychological groups based on support or opposition to specific socio-political issues and policies (related to issue-driven polarization), and that of ideological and psychological distancing between groups (related to affective polarization). Furthermore, we discuss the foundations of polarizing groups – and more specifically, the role of conflicting collective narratives about social reality in providing an initial platform for polarization in a technologically networked world. In particular, we highlight the importance of online media in facilitating and enhancing polarization between ideologically opposed camps. As a theoretical contribution, the review provides a more functional conceptualization of polarization that can explain how polarization may occur across partisan fault lines and in domains outside of politics. We conclude with a discussion of new pathways to the study of polarization which this integrative conceptualization opens.

Seek and Ye Shall Be Fine: Attitudes Toward Political-Perspective Seekers

Six preregistered studies (N = 2,421) examined how people respond to copartisan political-perspective seekers: political allies who attempt to hear from shared opponents and better understand their views. We found that North American adults and students generally like copartisan seekers (meta-analytic Cohen's d = 0.83 across 4,231 participants, representing all available data points). People like copartisan perspective seekers because they seem tolerant, cooperative, and rational, but this liking is diminished because seekers seem to validate-and may even adopt-opponents' illegitimate views. Participants liked copartisan seekers across a range of different motivations guiding these seekers' actions but, consistent with our theorizing, their liking decreased (though rarely disappeared entirely) when seekers lacked partisan commitments or when they sought especially illegitimate beliefs. Despite evidence of rising political intolerance in recent decades, these findings suggest that people nonetheless celebrate political allies who tolerate and seriously consider their opponents' views.

Virtuous victims

How do people perceive the moral character of victims? We find, across a range of transgressions, that people frequently see victims of wrongdoing as more moral than nonvictims who have behaved identically. Across 17 experiments (total n = 9676), we document this Virtuous Victim effect and explore the mechanisms underlying it. We also find support for the Justice Restoration Hypothesis, which proposes that people see victims as moral because this perception serves to motivate punishment of perpetrators and helping of victims, and people frequently face incentives to enact or encourage these “justice-restorative” actions. Our results validate predictions of this hypothesis and suggest that the Virtuous Victim effect does not merely reflect (i) that victims look good in contrast to perpetrators, (ii) that people are generally inclined to positively evaluate those who have suffered, or (iii) that people hold a genuine belief that victims tend to be people who behave morally.

Attitude Moralization Within Polarized Contexts: An Emotional Value-Protective Response to Dyadic Harm Cues

Polarization about societal issues involves attitudinal conflict, but we know little about how such conflict transforms into moral conflict. Integrating insights on polarization and psychological value protection, we propose a model that predicts when and how attitude moralization (i.e., when attitudes become grounded in core values) may be triggered and develops within polarized contexts. We tested this model in three experiments (total N = 823) in the context of the polarized Zwarte Piet (blackface) debate in the Netherlands. Specifically, we tested the hypotheses that (a) situational cues to dyadic harm in this context (i.e., an outgroup that is perceived as intentionally inflicting harm onto innocent victims) trigger individuals to moralize their relevant attitude, because of (b) emotional value-protective responses. Findings supported both hypotheses across different regional contexts, suggesting that attitude moralization can emerge within polarized contexts when people are exposed to actions by attitudinal opponents perceived as causing dyadic harm.

The COVID-19-Social Identity-Digital Media Nexus in India: Polarization and Blame

Drawing on social identity theory and research on digital media and polarization, this study uses a quasi-experimental design with a random sample (n = 3304) to provide causal evidence on perceptions of who is to blame for the initial spread of COVID-19 in India. According blame to three different social and political entities-Tablighi Jamaat (a Muslim group), the Modi government, and migrant workers (a heterogeneous group)-are the dependent variables in three OLS regression models testing the effect of the no-blame treatment, controlling for Facebook use, social identity (religion), vote in the 2019 national election, and other demographics. Results show respondents in the treatment group were more likely to allay blame, affective polarization (dislike for outgroup members) was social identity based, not partisan based, and Facebook/Instagram use was not significant. Congress and United Progressive Alliance voters in 2019 were less likely to blame the Modi government for the initial spread. Unlike extant research in western contexts, affective and political polarization appear to be distinct concepts in India where social identity complexity is important. This study of the first wave informs perceptions of blame in future waves, which are discussed in conclusion along with questions for future research.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the search for structure: Social media and conspiracy theories

The study outlines a model for how the COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely exacerbated the propagation of conspiracy beliefs and subsequent harmful behaviors. The pandemic has led to widespread disruption of cognitive and social structures. As people face these disruptions they turn online seeking alternative cognitive and social structures. Once there, social media radicalizes beliefs, increasing contagion (rapid spread) and stickiness (resistance to change) of conspiracy theories. As conspiracy theories are reinforced in online communities, social norms develop, translating conspiracy beliefs into real-world action. These real-world exchanges are then posted back on social media, where they are further reinforced and amplified, and the cycle continues. In the broader population, this process draws attention to conspiracy theories and those who confidently espouse them. This attention can drive perceptions that conspiracy beliefs are less fringe and more popular, potentially normalizing such beliefs for the mainstream. We conclude by considering interventions and future research to address this seemingly intractable problem.

How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks

Moral outrage shapes fundamental aspects of social life and is now widespread in online social networks. Here, we show how social learning processes amplify online moral outrage expressions over time. In two preregistered observational studies on Twitter (7331 users and 12.7 million total tweets) and two preregistered behavioral experiments (N = 240), we find that positive social feedback for outrage expressions increases the likelihood of future outrage expressions, consistent with principles of reinforcement learning. In addition, users conform their outrage expressions to the expressive norms of their social networks, suggesting norm learning also guides online outrage expressions. Norm learning overshadows reinforcement learning when normative information is readily observable: in ideologically extreme networks, where outrage expression is more common, users are less sensitive to social feedback when deciding whether to express outrage. Our findings highlight how platform design interacts with human learning mechanisms to affect moral discourse in digital public spaces.

Shared partisanship dramatically increases social tie formation in a Twitter field experiment

Americans are much more likely to be socially connected to copartisans, both in daily life and on social media. However, this observation does not necessarily mean that shared partisanship per se drives social tie formation, because partisanship is confounded with many other factors. Here, we test the causal effect of shared partisanship on the formation of social ties in a field experiment on Twitter. We created bot accounts that self-identified as people who favored the Democratic or Republican party and that varied in the strength of that identification. We then randomly assigned 842 Twitter users to be followed by one of our accounts. Users were roughly three times more likely to reciprocally follow-back bots whose partisanship matched their own, and this was true regardless of the bot's strength of identification. Interestingly, there was no partisan asymmetry in this preferential follow-back behavior: Democrats and Republicans alike were much more likely to reciprocate follows from copartisans. These results demonstrate a strong causal effect of shared partisanship on the formation of social ties in an ecologically valid field setting and have important implications for political psychology, social media, and the politically polarized state of the American public.

Toward a psychology of attitude conflict

We review research on "attitude conflict" -- competitive disagreement with regard to beliefs, values, and preferences, characterized by parties' intolerance of each other's positions. We propose a simple causal model of attitude conflict, including three antecedents that drive it and two consequences that frequently emerge. Whereas prior research has focused on the consequences - negative inferences about holders of opposing views and negative affect at the prospect of interacting with them - we focus on the antecedents. Specifically, we propose that disagreements that lead to attitude conflict are often characterized by perceptions of high (1) outcome importance, (2) actor interdependence, and (3) evidentiary skew. Our analysis offers multiple paths for future research to more accurately predict and more effectively intervene in such situations.

Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media

There has been growing concern about the role social media plays in political polarization. We investigated whether out-group animosity was particularly successful at generating engagement on two of the largest social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter. Analyzing posts from news media accounts and US congressional members (n = 2,730,215), we found that posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language-both established predictors of social media engagement. Language about the out-group was a very strong predictor of "angry" reactions (the most popular reactions across all datasets), and language about the in-group was a strong predictor of "love" reactions, reflecting in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. This out-group effect was not moderated by political orientation or social media platform, but stronger effects were found among political leaders than among news media accounts. In sum, out-group language is the strongest predictor of social media engagement across all relevant predictors measured, suggesting that social media may be creating perverse incentives for content expressing out-group animosity.

False polarization: Cognitive mechanisms and potential solutions

Although political polarization in the United States is real, intense, and increasing, partisans consistently overestimate its magnitude. This 'false polarization' is insidious because it reinforces actual polarization and inhibits compromise. We review empirical research on false polarization and the related phenomenon of negative meta-perceptions, and we propose three cognitive and affective processes that likely contribute to these phenomena: categorical thinking, oversimplification, and emotional amplification. Finally, we review several interventions that have shown promise in mitigating these biases.

Intolerance of uncertainty modulates brain-to-brain synchrony during politically polarized perception

Political partisans see the world through an ideologically biased lens. What drives political polarization? Although it has been posited that polarization arises because of an inability to tolerate uncertainty and a need to hold predictable beliefs about the world, evidence for this hypothesis remains elusive. We examined the relationship between uncertainty tolerance and political polarization using a combination of brain-to-brain synchrony and intersubject representational similarity analysis, which measured committed liberals' and conservatives' (n = 44) subjective interpretation of naturalistic political video material. Shared ideology between participants increased neural synchrony throughout the brain during a polarizing political debate filled with provocative language but not during a neutrally worded news clip on polarized topics or a nonpolitical documentary. During the political debate, neural synchrony in mentalizing and valuation networks was modulated by one's aversion to uncertainty: Uncertainty-intolerant individuals experienced greater brain-to-brain synchrony with politically like-minded peers and lower synchrony with political opponents-an effect observed for liberals and conservatives alike. Moreover, the greater the neural synchrony between committed partisans, the more likely that two individuals formed similar, polarized attitudes about the debate. These results suggest that uncertainty attitudes gate the shared neural processing of political narratives, thereby fueling polarized attitude formation about hot-button issues.

In-your-face Watergate: neutralizing government lawbreaking and the war against white-collar crime

Ample official evidence exists that the Trump administration was the most corrupt in modern American history. Donald Trump's overall pattern of behavior not only resembled, but amplified that of major white-collar criminals. This paper has two main foci. First, it argues that government criminality and corruption were facilitated by rationales and excuses that denied effective social condemnation of such acts. Second, it considers how these defenses were weaponized by the Trump administration as part of a much larger and more deliberate "war on white-collar crime" more generally. As a result, enormous efforts are necessary to restore and strengthen regulatory and enforcement regimes, and transcend deepened political cleavages on such matters. Through a new hybrid neutralization technique, normalization of condemning the condemners, Trump exacerbated existing political differences and influenced supporters to at once ignore government crime and corruption, and accept new moral narratives that flew in the face of substantial evidence of criminality.