How Affective Polarization Shapes Americans’ Political Beliefs: A Study of Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

By James N. Druckman, Samara Klar, Yanna Krupnikov, Matthew Levendusky, John Ryan. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2020

130 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Affective polarization – partisans’ dislike and distrust of those from the other party – has reached historically high levels in the United States. While numerous studies estimate its effect on apolitical outcomes (e.g., dating and economic transactions), we know much less about its effects on political beliefs. We argue that those who exhibit high levels of affective polarization politicize ostensibly apolitical issues and actors. An experiment focused on responses to COVID-19 that relies on pre-pandemic, exogenous measures of affective polarization supports our expectations. Partisans who harbor high levels of animus towards the other party do not differentiate the “United States’” response to COVID-19 from that of the Trump administration. Less affectively polarized partisans, in contrast, do not politicize evaluations of the country’s response. Our results provide evidence of how affective polarization, apart from partisanship itself, shapes substantive beliefs. Affective polarization has political consequences and political beliefs stem, in part, from partisan animus.

Subfields: Communication, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1e39abfc4e23e4616b94c62c02e7e53c20197591

Citations in the corpus

• Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic (2020, unknown): “…and Rothwell (2020), and Wu and Huber (2020) show that partisanship is a primary driver of attitudes about the pandemic and self-reported behaviors in surveys, and Druckman et al. (2020) show that affective polarization colors people's evaluations of the U.S. government response to the pandemic.”