Affective Political Polarization Pre- and Post-Election: Beliefs about Positive and Negative Behaviors

Affective polarization, defined as the extent to which citizens feel more negatively toward other political parties than toward their own, has risen sharply in the United States in recent decades (Iyengar et al., 2019). This study compared the attitudes of Democrats and Republicans toward their in-group (shared political group) versus their out-group (the opposing political group) and explored how these attitudes may have shifted in response to election outcomes. Some research has found that Democrats tend to be less likely to express prejudice and affirm stereotypes (Sparkman & Eidelman, 2016); however, other studies indicate that both sides can harbor prejudices toward those they perceive as threats, known as the ideological conflict hypothesis (Brandt et al., 2014). Increasingly, members of both parties view the opposing political group as a significant threat. We examined two research questions. These questions were: Do Democrats and Republicans view their own party as acting with more integrity than the opposing party? How have these views changed since Trump’s election?