Partisan winds: Group-level polarization and issue-framing propel attitudes about local wind farms

Political polarization is an obstacle to public support and effective communication for renewable energy projects. Depolarizing messages can be helpful, but it is difficult to determine where to concentrate efforts until social scientists first disentangle the effects of unconscious issue-based and conscious group norm-based polarization processes. This study investigates the extent to which attitudes towards wind energy development are polarized in the United States, focusing on attitudes about local wind farms. We tested different frames in a survey with 1300 U.S. participants, combining implicit and explicit attitude measures to measure unconscious and conscious attitudes towards nearby wind farms, respectively. Our findings suggest that explicit attitudes towards wind farms are more polarized than implicit attitudes, emphasizing the role of conscious processes in shaping attitudes. Furthermore, perceptions of within-party support significantly influence explicit attitudes, indicating the importance of group norm-based polarization in this context. While our framing interventions aimed at addressing issue-based polarization yielded mixed results, the moderating effect of perceived within-party support underscores the potential efficacy of interventions targeting group-level processes. Regarding policy implications, our findings highlight the importance of considering both issue-based and group norm-based polarization when developing and implementing communication strategies for garnering local support for nearby renewable energy developments. • Conscious attitudes about local wind farms are more polarized than unconscious ones. • The partisan gap is attributed to individual and group-level polarization processes. • Individual polarization relates to ideology and group polarization to identity. • Issue-framing appealing to ideology has limited efficacy in combating polarization. • Group-level polarization is key and depends on perceptions of within-party support.