Perceiving Political Polarization in the United States

@article{Westfall2015PerceivingPP,
  title={Perceiving Political Polarization in the United States},
  author={Jacob Westfall and Leaf Van Boven and John R. Chambers and Charles M Judd},
  journal={Perspectives on Psychological Science},
  year={2015},
  volume={10},
  pages={145 - 158}
}
An important component of political polarization in the United States is the degree to which ordinary people perceive political polarization. We used over 30 years of national survey data from the American National Election Study to examine how the public perceives political polarization between the Democratic and Republican parties and between Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. People in the United States consistently overestimate polarization between the attitudes of Democrats… 
View on SAGE
marketing.wharton.upenn.edu
175 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
9
Background Citations
42
Methods Citations
2
Results Citations
8

Figures and Tables from this paper

175 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Vote intent and beliefs about democracy in the United States
Democracy is an abstract and murky concept. This is particularly apparent in the wide variety of beliefs about democracy held by publics around the globe. Within democracies, political parties often…
The Great and Widening Divide: Political False Polarization and its Consequences
American politics is becoming increasingly ideologically divided, and this cross-party hostility is reflected in pronounced partisan media outrage. However, while actual ideological polarization has…
Putting Within-Country Political Differences in (Global) Perspective
TLDR
When viewed in the full distribution, polarization between Democrats and Republicans appears relatively small, even on divisive issues such as abortion, sexual preference, and freedom of religious speech, suggesting that cross-cultural comparisons are useful for putting differences between political partisans within the same country in context.
Psychological Barriers to Bipartisan Public Support for Climate Policy
TLDR
Correcting misperceived norms of opposition and decoupling policy evaluation from identity concerns would help overcome these seemingly insurmountable barriers to bipartisan support for climate policy.
The Political Domain Appears Simpler to the Politically Extreme Than to Political Moderates
How does political preference affect categorization in the political domain? Eight studies demonstrate that people on both ends of the political spectrum—strong Republicans and strong Democrats—form…
How partisan affect shapes citizens' perception of the political world
Mis)perceptions of Partisan Polarization in the American Public
Few topics in public opinion research have attracted as much attention in recent years as partisan polarization in the American mass public. Yet, there has been considerably less investigation into…
Issue Salience and Political Stereotypes
We examine US voters’ beliefs about views held by Republicans and Democrats. While individuals exaggerate partisan differences on a range of socioeconomic and political issues, we document that…
It’s their fault: Partisan attribution bias and its association with voting intentions
This research examined how people explain major outcomes of political consequence (e.g., economic growth, rising inequality). We argue that people attribute positive outcomes more and negative…
Do Polarization Narratives Apply to Politics on the Periphery? The Case of Atlantic Canada
TLDR
Whether mass ideological polarization and partisan sorting can be found in Atlantic Canada is assessed, looking at socio-cultural and economic dimensions of political values and underlying forms of political polarization are manifesting in the region.
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 83 REFERENCES
Political polarization projection: social projection of partisan attitude extremity and attitudinal processes.
TLDR
Supporting this explanation, polarization projection increased when people introspected about their own attitudinal processes, which increased the accessibility of those processes, and implications for perceptions of partisanship, social judgment, and civic behavior are discussed.
Is Polarization a Myth?
This article uses data from the American National Election Studies and national exit polls to test Fiorina's assertion that ideological polarization in the American public is a myth. Fiorina argues…
Partisans without Constraint: Political Polarization and Trends in American Public Opinion.
TLDR
The findings suggest that opinion changes correspond more to a resorting of party labels among voters than to greater constraint on issue attitudes: since parties are more polarized, they are now better at sorting individuals along ideological lines.
Political Polarization in the American Public
For more than two decades political scientists have discussed rising elite polarization in the United States, but the study of mass polarization did not receive comparable attention until fairly…
The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans
As Washington elites drifted toward ideological poles over the past few decades, did ordinary Americans follow their lead? In "The Partisan Sort", Matthew Levendusky reveals that we have responded to…
Seeing Red (and Blue): Effects of Electoral College Depictions on Political Group Perception
Colored maps depicting electoral results may exacerbate perceptions of polarization, rather than merely reflecting them. Participants viewed maps of state-by-state Presidential election results that…
Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches
The idea of America as politically polarized—that there is an unbridgeable divide between right and left, red and blue states—has become a cliche. What commentators miss, however, is that increasing…
Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America
1. Culture War? 2. A 50:50 Nation? The Red and the Blue States. Is the Country Polarized? Red v. Blue States: A Summary. The Obvious Hypothesis. 3. A 50:50 Nation? Beyond the Red and the Blue. Is the…
The Electoral Roots of America's Dysfunctional Government
The government in Washington is dysfunctional. That is one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans can agree on these days. Our nation faces major challenges in dealing with such problems as…
Ideology and Prejudice
TLDR
Three studies tested whether prejudice derives from perceived similarities and dissimilarities in political ideologies and found symmetrical preferences, with liberals and conservatives each liking attitudinally similar targets more than dissimilar targets.
...
1
2
3
4
5
...