Who Do People Blame for Affective Polarization?

• In Event: Threats and Reforms to U.S. Elections

Abstract

Affective polarization—sharp animosity towards out-group parties and their members—plays a crucial role in explaining behaviors in the current political landscape. However, very little is understood about how ordinary people understand and attribute responsibility for affective polarization—who caused its increase—and its implications for depolarization efforts. We study how people make comparative judgments of multiple actors, all identified as likely sources of polarization by the literature, by leveraging ranking survey questions with improved statistical methods. We find that, surprisingly, people placed very little blame on interest groups and almost none on fellow citizens. Moreover, we uncover a stark partisan difference in how much blame to attribute towards print media and television, with more Republicans than Democrats ranking them relatively higher. We argue that there is a significant gap between research tackling depolarization and what citizens perceive as root causes of polarization and understanding blame attribution has important behavioral implications.

Authors

• Seo-young Silvia Kim, Sogang University

• Yuki Atsusaka, University of Houston