Like Cats and Dogs: Affective Polarization and Polarized Non-Political Preferences in Five Democracies

Mounting evidence shows the presence of spillover effects of inter-partisan animosity on non-political attitudes, such as social interactions, that are re-interpreted via a partisan lens. Much less clear is whether this spillover effect can also shape cultural preferences or lifestyle choices. In this article we present novel evidence on the relationship between affective polarization and polarized preferences for cats and dogs as pets. That is, we examine the extent in which people showcase a strong preference for their type of pets (e.g., cats) while disliking the other type (e.g., dogs), a phenomenon we term affective PAWlarization. We leverage novel comparative survey evidence gathered from samples of respondents in five countries (The USA, Argentina, Australia, Germany, Italy) in 2022 and 2023, in which we have embedded questions to measure their levels of partisan animosity and a series of innovative measures to tackle polarized pet preferences. Results largely confirm the presence of a positive association between affective polarization and polarized pet preferences, even controlling for several important covariates, albeit not in all countries. Additionally, exposure to experimental materials cueing for inter-partisan hostility is associated, downstream, with upticks in polarized pet preferences among respondents perceiving those cues at face value (e.g., an uncivil message seen as, indeed, uncivil) – suggesting the presence of causal, directional spillover effects from political to non-political hostile attitudes.