Dataset Information

Seeing Red: Anger Increases How Much Republican Identification Predicts Partisan Attitudes and Perceived Polarization.

ABSTRACT: We examined the effects of incidental anger on perceived and actual polarization between Democrats and Republicans in the context of two national tragedies, Hurricane Katrina (Study 1) and the mass shooting that targeted Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona (Study 2). We hypothesized that because of its relevance to intergroup conflict, incidental anger exacerbates the political polarization effects of issue partisanship (the correlation between partisan identification and partisan attitudes), and, separately, the correlation between conservative partisan identification and perceived polarization between Democrats and Republicans. We further hypothesized that these effects would be strongest for Republican identification because Republican leaders were targets of public criticism in both tragedies and because conservative (Republican) ideology tends to be more sensitive to threat. In the studies, participants first completed an emotion induction procedure by recalling autobiographical events that made them angry (Studies 1 & 2), sad (Studies 1 & 2), or that involved recalling emotionally neutral events (Study 2). Participants later reported their attitudes regarding the two tragedies, their perceptions of the typical Democrat's and Republican's attitudes on those issues, and their identification with the Democratic and Republican parties. Compared with incidental sadness (Studies 1 and 2) and a neutral condition (Study 2), incidental anger exacerbated the associations between Republican identification and partisan attitudes, and, separately between Republican identification and perceived polarization between the attitudes of Democrats and Republicans. We discuss implications for anger's influence on political attitude formation and perceptions of group differences in political attitudes.

SUBMITTER: Huber M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4583401 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Seeing Red: Anger Increases How Much Republican Identification Predicts Partisan Attitudes and Perceived Polarization.

Huber Michaela M Van Boven Leaf L Park Bernadette B Pizzi William T WT

PloS one 20150925 9

We examined the effects of incidental anger on perceived and actual polarization between Democrats and Republicans in the context of two national tragedies, Hurricane Katrina (Study 1) and the mass shooting that targeted Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona (Study 2). We hypothesized that because of its relevance to intergroup conflict, incidental anger exacerbates the political polarization effects of issue partisanship (the correlation between partisan identification and partisan attit ...[more]

PMID: 26407321

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Project description:Decades of research have demonstrated that we like people who are more similar to us. The present research tested a potential mechanism for this similarity-liking effect in the domain of politics: the stereotype that people's political orientation reflects their morals. People believe that Democrats are more likely to endorse individualizing morals like fairness and Republicans are more likely to endorse binding morals like obedience to authority. Prior to the 2016 election, American participants (N = 314) viewed an ostensible Facebook profile that shared an article endorsing conservative ideals (pro-Trump or pro-Republican), or liberal ideals (pro-Clinton or pro-Democrat). Participants rated the favorability of the profile-owner, and completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire for the profile-owner and themselves. As predicted, participants liked the profile-owner more when they shared political beliefs, and used political stereotypes to infer the moral foundations of the profile-owner. Additionally, the perceived moral foundation endorsement of the profile owner differentially mediated the relationship between the ideology and evaluations of the profile owner based on the party affiliation of the participant: perceived individualizing foundations mediated the relationship for Democratic participants and perceived binding foundations mediated the relationship for Republican participants. In other words, people liked their in-group members more because they thought that the profile-owner endorsed a specific type of morals. In Study 2 (N = 486), we ruled out the potential explanation that any political stereotype can account for the similarity-liking effect, replicating the results of Study 1 even when controlling for perceptions of other personality differences. Taken together, these studies highlight that there may be something unique about the perceived type of morality of political in-group and out-group members that may be contributing to the similarity-liking effect in politics.

Dataset Information

Seeing Red: Anger Increases How Much Republican Identification Predicts Partisan Attitudes and Perceived Polarization.

Publications

Seeing Red: Anger Increases How Much Republican Identification Predicts Partisan Attitudes and Perceived Polarization.

Similar Datasets

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