Polarization and Cooperation: A Behavioral Experiment

• In Event: Polarization and Democratic Decline

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of affective polarization on cooperation. We use a behavioral experiment as a hard test for this effect, in which survey respondents are invited to cooperate asynchronously with another subject in completing a simple one-shot task (converting to capital letters a salad recipe or a political text previously created by the other subject). Respondents are treated on whether the other subject votes for her most liked/disliked party and on the benefits and rewards that result from cooperation. Results show that cooperation is greatly reduced when the other subject is an outpartisan (more than 20 percentage points lower than in the control group), although it is not more likely with copartisans. Also, the negative effect of polarization significantly softens when there is a public good at stake (a donation to an NGO), and it is amplified by increased levels of affective polarization. Finally, among those that decide to cooperate, the quality of the task is higher if the respondent receives a reward but notably lower for political texts.

These empirical findings suggest that recently increasing affective polarization might have important effects outside the political realm and have far-reaching implications for today's heterogeneous societies. When even basic forms of interaction between individuals are corroded by partisan animosity, the development of higher forms of cooperation between groups with different political preferences can be severely compromised.

Authors

• Ignacio Jurado, Carlos III University

• Albert Falcó-Gimeno, University of Barcelona

• Sandra Leon, Univesity Carlos III, Madrid