The Home as a Political Fortress: Family Agreement in an Era of Polarization

Iyengar, Shanto; Konitzer, Tobias; Tedin, Kent L.

doi:10.1086/698929

Cited by 119 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Today, most Americans are embedded in social networks that are politically homogeneous, meaning that we infrequently encounter political disagreement. At the level of the nuclear family, both spousal and parent-offspring agreement on party affiliation exceed 75% (29). The composition of online social networks is only marginally less monolithic (30).…”

Section: Party Polarization; An Impediment To Science Communicationmentioning

confidence: 96%

Scientific communication in a post-truth society

Iyengar

Massey

2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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243

189

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Within the scientific community, much attention has focused on improving communications between scientists, policy makers, and the public. To date, efforts have centered on improving the content, accessibility, and delivery of scientific communications. Here we argue that in the current political and media environment faulty communication is no longer the core of the problem. Distrust in the scientific enterprise and misperceptions of scientific knowledge increasingly stem less from problems of communication and more from the widespread dissemination of misleading and biased information. We describe the profound structural shifts in the media environment that have occurred in recent decades and their connection to public policy decisions and technological changes. We explain how these shifts have enabled unscrupulous actors with ulterior motives increasingly to circulate fake news, misinformation, and disinformation with the help of trolls, bots, and respondent-driven algorithms. We document the high degree of partisan animosity, implicit ideological bias, political polarization, and politically motivated reasoning that now prevail in the public sphere and offer an actual example of how clearly stated scientific conclusions can be systematically perverted in the media through an internet-based campaign of disinformation and misinformation. We suggest that, in addition to attending to the clarity of their communications, scientists must also develop online strategies to counteract campaigns of misinformation and disinformation that will inevitably follow the release of findings threatening to partisans on either end of the political spectrum.

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Section: Party Polarization; An Impediment To Science Communicationmentioning

confidence: 96%

Scientific communication in a post-truth society

Iyengar

Massey

2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

243

189

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“…politics-which include an increasingly partisan mass media (Levendusky, 2013), an upsurge of money into politics (La Raja & Schaffner, 2015), gerrymandering (Carson, Crespin, Finocchiaro, & Rohde, 2007;Theriault, 2008), unprecedented inequality (Voorheis, McCarty, & Shor, 2015), differences in education (Tuschman, 2013), and even the increasing tendency of U.S. citizens to marry politically like-minded individuals (Iyengar, Konitzer, & Tedin, 2018)-these explanations have overlooked a deeper psychological element, namely empathy, that may be playing a significant role in driving the political rift between liberals and conservatives.…”

Section: Liberalism Versus Conservativismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathy and the liberal-conservative political divide in the U.S.

Morris¹

2020

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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When future historians look back upon the current political climate in the U.S., it is likely that they will view the severe state of political polarization between liberals and conservatives as being one of its defining characteristics. While some have suggested that a difference in general levels of empathy among liberals and conservatives could be playing a role in shaping their differing political attitudes, psychologist Paul Bloom has forcefully argued against any such difference in his book “Against Empathy”. In this commentary I set out to counter Bloom’s claim that there is no significant relationship between the capacity to experience empathy and political ideology. To this end, I discuss how a growing collection of empirical research indicates that an individual’s propensity to experience empathy correlates with one’s general political attitudes (including party affiliation) as well as with which specific policy positions one takes. More specifically, this research suggests that a strong connection exists between empathy and liberal political views. In light of this research, I suggest that empathy can help account for the differences in political attitudes among liberals and conservatives in the U.S. and may even help explain why such attitudes have become increasingly polarized. The analysis provided in this essay aims to further our understanding of how personality traits can be used to predict voter attitudes in the U.S. and beyond.

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“…It has also been associated with a number of negative responses to the political outgroup including anger (Mason, 2018a) and distrust (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015), and an unwillingness to engage in discourse with the opposition (Settle & Carlson, 2019;Strickler, 2018). The way in which we think of ourselves politically can even influence our everyday interactions: there is an increasing rarity of close personal relationships in the US across party lines (Iyengar, Konitzer, & Tedin, 2018) and US citizens are more likely to favour their political in-group in a variety of contexts, from online transactions for goods and services (McConnell, Margalit, Malhotra, & Levendusky, 2018), to the awarding of scholarships and jobs (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015;Johnson & Roberto, 2019). Indeed, prejudice against a person of opposing political identity in the US was found to be more prevalent than racial prejudice (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

The individual and the nation: A qualitative analysis of US liberal and conservative identity content

Hanson

O’Dwyer

Lyons

2019

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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Recent research highlights the significant role of political ideological identities in America’s increasing political polarisation. In line with social identity theory, self-placement as a US liberal or conservative predicts favouritism toward the ideological in-group and negative attitudes and behaviours toward the outgroup. The theory also holds that the link between self-categorisation and behaviour is mediated by the content of that identity, by what an individual believes it means to be a member of that group. Although previous research has done much to analyse the differences between US liberals and conservatives on various a priori dimensions, little work has been aimed at gaining a holistic account of ideological identity content from the individual’s lay perspective. Through qualitative analysis of 40 interviews (20 liberals and 20 conservatives), this study identifies central themes in the meaning self-identified US liberals and conservatives attribute to these labels and finds evidence for asymmetrical constructions of these identities. The liberal participant group’s identity construction revolved around identification as, and concern for, individuals, supported by reference to personal values and political issues and underpinned by a motivation to move toward a more equal society. Conversely, the conservative participant group connected the understanding of their identity directly to the political ideology of the nation through a thread of self-reliance and reverence for the national group. Implications for political behaviour and the study of ideological identity are discussed.

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The Home as a Political Fortress: Family Agreement in an Era of Polarization

Cited by 119 publications

References 34 publications

Scientific communication in a post-truth society

Scientific communication in a post-truth society

Empathy and the liberal-conservative political divide in the U.S.

The individual and the nation: A qualitative analysis of US liberal and conservative identity content

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