At a time of a high level of polarization in Congress, public opinion surveys routinely find that Americans want politicians to compromise. When evaluating legislation, does the preference for bipartisanship in the legislative process trump partisan identities? We find that it does not. We conduct two experiments in which we alter aspects of the political context to see how people respond to parties (not) coming together to achieve broadly popular public policy goals. Although citizens can recognize bipartisan processes, preferences for bipartisan legislating do not outweigh partisan desires in the evaluation of public policies.

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Objective. We hypothesize that priming a shared in-group identity can lead to openness to attitudinal change, even on highly polarized issues. Specifically, we test whether priming a shared identity as a religious person can generate willingness to voice support for same-sex marriage. Methods. We conduct a randomized survey experiment using the SocialSci platform, exposing religious and secular respondents to religious and anonymous primes about same-sex marriage. Results. Individuals who are religious and who are exposed to the treatment prime are more likely to say that they support marriage equality and would vote for a ballot initiative in their state that would allow same-sex marriage. Conclusion. Despite widespread opposition to marriage equality among people of faith, having that religious identity primed through an elite religious cue has a significant and often dramatic effect on attitudes toward marriage equality.

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