Identity Politics: The Effect of Affective Polarization on Americans’ Attitudes Toward Outparty-Stereotypical Groups

In recent years, Americans' dislike of the opposing party has increased-a phenomenon known as affective polarization (Iyengar et al. 2019).Although the consequences of this shift have been well-documented, it remains unclear whether affective polarization impacts attitudes and behaviors toward non-political groups.Drawing from the literature on social sorting (Mason 2018), theories in cognitive-political psychology (Quillian 1967;Collins and Loftus 1975;Lodge and Taber 2013), and emerging work on parallel updating (Westwood and Peterson 2022), I hypothesize that affective polarization spills over onto affect toward outparty-stereotypical groups.To test this hypothesis, I fielded a survey experiment to 1,250 American adults.Participants were randomly assigned to an increased polarization, decreased polarization, or control condition.I assessed both polarization and group affect using a series of feeling thermometers and conducted a mediation analysis to examine the treatment effect.Both Democrats and Republicans exhibited more positive attitudes toward groups associated with the opposing party when their levels of affective polarization were lowered.When affective polarization was increased, respondents expressed more negative attitudes toward groups associated with the opposing party, but these effects were imprecisely estimated.These results provide limited but encouraging evidence that addressing political polarization could reduce prejudice and bias against non-political groups.More generally, they suggest a need for further research on how affective polarization impacts attitudes and behavior beyond an exclusively partisan context.