Resentment Is Like Drinking Poison? The Heterogeneous Health Effects of Affective Polarization

Abstract

Affective polarization—the tendency for individuals to exhibit animosity toward those on the opposite side of the partisan divide—has increased in the United States in recent years. This article presents evidence that this trend may have consequences for Americans’ health. Structural equation model analyses of nationally representative survey data from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (n = 4,685) showed heterogeneous relationships between affectively polarized attitudes and self-rated health. On one hand, such attitudes were directly negatively associated with health such that the polarized political environment was proposed to operate as a sociopolitical stressor. Simultaneously, affective polarization was positively associated with political participation, which in turn was positively associated with health, although the direct negative effect was substantially larger than the indirect positive one. These results suggest that today’s increasingly hostile and pervasive form of partisanship may undermine Americans’ health even as it induces greater political engagement.

The dual nature of American partisan affect: Examining the impact of inparty affinity and outparty animosity on unique forms of political behavior

“…The importance of outparty animosity has also been justified using the predictive validity of various outcomes. For instance, Nelson (2022) finds that greater affective polarization-in terms of a greater number of negative emotions ex perienced toward the outparty-is associated with worse self-reported health, though these negative health consequen ces may be somewhat buffered by the increased political engagement associated with negative partisan affect. Work in the negative partisanship tradition has also noted that as outparty animosity has increased, so too has party loyalty in vote choice, as Americans are increasingly unwilling to vote for the opposing party despite intra-party disagreement (Abramowitz & McCoy, 2019;Abramowitz & Webster, 2018).…”

County-level political group density, partisan polarization, and individual-level mortality among adults in the United States: A lagged multilevel study

“…Research on the health effects of elections and associated partisanship has burgeoned in the last decade, first emerging after the 2008 U.S. Presidential election ( Classen, 2009 ; Stanton et al, 2010 ; Waismel-Manor et al, 2011 ). Since then, studies have documented a range of negative biobehavioral health consequences of elections including increases in poor health ( Fraser et al, 2022 ; Nelson, 2022 ), rising cortisol levels ( Stanton et al, 2010 ; Waismel-Manor et al, 2011 ), increases in the incidence of mental health conditions such as stress, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and suicide ( Anýž et al, 2019 ; Classen, 2009 ; Hagan et al, 2020 ; Hoyt et al, 2018 ; Nayak et al, 2021 ), elevated blood pressure ( Hwang et al, 2022 ), increases in the onset of cardiac arrhythmias and acute cardiovascular disease ( Mefford et al, 2022 ; Rosman et al, 2021 ), and increases in all-cause mortality ( Maas & Lu, 2020 ). Given that issues such as immigration, foreign policy, welfare, taxes, racism, and marriage equality have historically been important during elections ( Dao, 2004 ; Newport, 2008 ; O’Connor, 2001 ; Yau, 2004 ), the impacts might be particularly salient for marginalized communities which tend to be deeply impacted by the policy effects of partisan changes.…”

“…The sociopolitical environment generated by high area-level political group density and widespread polarization could adversely influence health at the individual level. Over time, the adverse individual-level effects of experiencing high area-level political group density and polarization, such as higher stress, isolation, ill health and maladaptive health behaviors, could contribute to subsequent mortality, including mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD) ( Nelson, 2022 ).…”