Three studies explore the possibility that attitudes toward “diversity” are multidimensional rather than unidimensional and that ideological differences in diversity attitudes vary as a function of diversity subtype. Study 1 ( n = 1,001) revealed that the factor structure of attitudes toward 23 diverse community features was bidimensional. Factors involving demographic and viewpoint diversity emerged. Conservatives reported more positive attitudes toward viewpoint diversity, and liberals more positive attitudes toward demographic diversity. Study 2 ( n = 1,012) replicated Study 1 findings, and extended Study 1 results by showing attitudes toward the general concept of diversity predicted attitudes toward demographic diversity but not viewpoint diversity. In Study 3, 386 participants rated how relevant a set of features was to their prototypical understanding of diversity. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed people discriminate between viewpoint, demographic, and consumer diversity. Conservatives perceived viewpoint features as more relevant to “diversity,” whereas liberals perceived demographic features as more relevant.

How severely must a political candidate transgress in order to lose votes from supporters? What characteristics motivate people to vote for highly transgressive political candidates? By parametrically varying our novel, ecologically-valid scale of transgression severity across 70 voter-choice trials, the current study modeled the relationship between ingroup candidate transgression severity and voter choice to identify 1) The point of severity at which people abandon political ingroup members and vote for the outgroup, and 2) Ideological differences in this relationship. Across 70 trials, 493 Mturk participants chose to vote for an ingroup candidate or outgroup candidate after learning the ingroup candidate transgressed. A multilevel logistic model revealed the hypothesized relationships: people were more likely to abandon ingroup candidates as transgression severity increased, and participants with a stronger ideological identity were more likely to vote for transgressive ingroup candidates than less-identified individuals. Further, Republicans possessed a higher severity threshold than Democrats, such that they voted for the ingroup candidate for more severe transgressions than Democrats.