Perceptions of political leaders Demonstrating the effect of evolved psychological mechanisms on partisan identification using perceptions of political leaders

Partisan identification is a fundamental force in individual and mass political behavior around the world. Informed by scholarship on human sociality, coalitional psychology, and group behavior, this research argues that partisan identification, like many other group-based behaviors, is influenced b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolitics and the life sciences Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 60 - 79
Main Authors Schmitz, J. David, Murray, Gregg R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Logan Cambridge University Press 2017
Subjects
Adaptive behavior
candidate drawings
Candidates
Citizens
Decision making
Election results
Elections
evolved psychological mechanisms
Favoritism
Group decision making
Group dynamics
Group identity
group-based behavior
Height
Human behavior
Identification
Leader evaluations
Leadership
Organizational research
partisan identification
Partisanship
Party identification
physical formidability
Political behavior
Political leadership
Political opposition
Political parties
Political power
Politics
Power
Presidential elections
Presidents
Psychology
Scholarship
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Summary:Partisan identification is a fundamental force in individual and mass political behavior around the world. Informed by scholarship on human sociality, coalitional psychology, and group behavior, this research argues that partisan identification, like many other group-based behaviors, is influenced by forces of evolution. If correct, then party identifiers should exhibit adaptive behaviors when making group-related political decisions. The authors test this assertion with citizen assessments of the relative physical formidability of competing leaders, an important adaptive factor in leader evaluations. Using original and novel data collected during the contextually different 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential elections, as well as two distinct measures obtained during both elections, this article presents evidence that partisans overestimate the physical stature of the presidential candidate of their own party compared with the stature of the candidate of the opposition party. These findings suggest that the power of party identification on political behavior may be attributable to the fact that modern political parties address problems similar to the problems groups faced in human ancestral times.
ISSN:0730-9384
1471-5457
DOI:10.1017/pls.2017.22