The Polarizing Effects of Online Partisan Criticism: Evidence from Two Experiments

Abstract

Affective and social political polarization—a dislike of political opponents and a desire to avoid their company—are increasingly salient and pervasive features of politics in many Western democracies, particularly the United States. One contributor to these related phenomena may be increasing exposure to online political disagreements in which ordinary citizens criticize, and sometimes explicitly demean, opponents. This article presents two experimental studies that assessed whether U.S. partisans’ attitudes became more prejudiced in favor of the in-party after exposure to online partisan criticism. In the first study, we draw on an online convenience sample to establish that partisan criticism that derogates political opponents increases affective polarization. In the second, we replicate these findings with a quasi-representative sample and extend the pattern of findings to social polarization. We conclude that online partisan criticism likely has contributed to rising affective and social polarization in recent years between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, and perhaps between partisan and ideological group members in other developed democracies as well. We close by discussing the troubling implications of these findings in light of continuing attempts by autocratic regimes and other actors to influence democratic elections via false identities on social media.

Rousing the Partisan Combatant: Elite Incivility, Anger, and Antideliberative Attitudes

“…Included in the model are controls for other factors known to mediate the effects of incivility, including partisan identity (1 = Democrat, 2 = Republican) strength of partisanship (1 = strong partisan, 0 = not strong partisan), and ideology (1 = very liberal, 7 = very conservative) (Mutz, , pp. 105, 106; Rains et al, ; Suhay et al, ). To be consistent with the models exploring antideliberative attitudes below—in which independents are necessarily excluded—self‐identified independents were not included in the model.…”

“…Per Mutz (), uncivil discourse is effective in generating negative affective responses, as political incivility represents a violation of social norms. Moreover, exposure to uncivil attacks on one’s ingroup can increase affective and social and affective polarization (Suhay, Bello‐Pardo, & Maurer, ). Other research specifies that the discrete emotion of anger is induced when incivility is directed at a person or her ingroup (including partisan groups) (Gervais, , ; Phillips & Smith, ).…”

Is Civility Contagious? Examining the Impact of Modeling in Online Political Discussions

“…They warned that low levels of trust threaten both the stability of political institutions and the ability of those institutions to function properly. Uncivil conversations can also lead to opinion polarization, particularly when partisan in nature (Anderson et al, 2014;Suhay, Bello-Pardo, & Maurer, 2018). Such polarization is both attitudinal, which involves a hardening of attitudes toward those with opposing viewpoints, and social, with express preferences for family and neighbors to be politically like-minded.…”

Compound Political Identity: How Partisan and Racial Identities Overlap and Reinforce

“…It also enables participants to clearly understand the identity and motivation of the out-group member with which they interact. Finally, although the modified trust game provides a novel delivery mechanism, this approach to shifting out-group affect via interpersonal interactions appears elsewhere in the literature on affective polarization (e.g., Kuo, Malhotra, and Mo, 2017;Suhay, Bello-Pardo, and Maurer, 2017).…”