How Affective Polarization Shapes Americans’ Political Beliefs: A Study of Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Affective polarization – partisans’ dislike and distrust of those from the other party – has reached historically high levels in the United States. While numerous studies estimate its effect on apolitical outcomes (e.g., dating and economic transactions), we know much less about its effects on polit...

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Published inJournal of experimental political science Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. 223 - 234
Main Authors Druckman, James N., Klar, Samara, Krupnikov, Yanna, Levendusky, Matthew, Ryan, John Barry
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.01.2021
Subjects
Beliefs
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Hypotheses
Pandemics
Partisanship
Polarization
Political parties
Political science
Preregistered Report
Presidents
Responsibility
Social identity
Trump, Donald J
United States > US
COVID-19
Affective polarization
attribution of responsibility
experiment
policy opinion
partisanship
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Summary:Affective polarization – partisans’ dislike and distrust of those from the other party – has reached historically high levels in the United States. While numerous studies estimate its effect on apolitical outcomes (e.g., dating and economic transactions), we know much less about its effects on political beliefs. We argue that those who exhibit high levels of affective polarization politicize ostensibly apolitical issues and actors. An experiment focused on responses to COVID-19 that relies on pre-pandemic, exogenous measures of affective polarization supports our expectations. Partisans who harbor high levels of animus towards the other party do not differentiate the “United States’” response to COVID-19 from that of the Trump administration. Less affectively polarized partisans, in contrast, do not politicize evaluations of the country’s response. Our results provide evidence of how affective polarization, apart from partisanship itself, shapes substantive beliefs. Affective polarization has political consequences and political beliefs stem, in part, from partisan animus.
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We thank Natalie Sands and Anna Wang for excellent research assistance. The data, code, and additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/8I1PUB. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
ISSN:2052-2630
2052-2649
DOI:10.1017/XPS.2020.28