icedteas.bsky.social
Research scientist and Incoming post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago | Researching attitude moralization and political conflict
41 posts
139 followers
194 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Also confirmed that young participants is definitely a factor in antidemocratic endorsement in both datasets, but it doesn't nullify the effect of outparty warmth
comment in response to
post
Of course, when graphing only outparty warmth, we get the weird relationship where the more you like the other party, the more willing you are to violate their democratic rights
comment in response to
post
We've removed inattentive respondents through several rounds, so we're pretty confident that it's not that. I've also found this in a few datasets with different methods of cleaning, etc.
comment in response to
post
It would be one thing if they were just anti-democratic actions in general, but the items ask about specific actions *against Republicans* so I can't see how liking Republicans more is associated with greater willingness to screw them over
comment in response to
post
Yes, it appears in a couple of my data sets that the negative relationship between affective polarization and support for anti-democratic actions occurs for Democrats, but not really for Republicans.
comment in response to
post
Thanks! Though I checked for that and political interest (extent to which one follows politics) didn't eliminate the effect
comment in response to
post
Has anyone else found this? Is there a theoretical explanation I’m missing? Would love to hear your thoughts or related findings!
comment in response to
post
This points to the need for better measures of affective polarization like political sectarianism—the moralized, toxic view of the other side. (come to my SPSP symposium about this!)
But still... why would colder feelings lead to less support for antidemocratic actions?
comment in response to
post
3️⃣ Could skew in the data explain it?
There’s definitely skew, but I find it hard to believe that it would fully account for the results.
comment in response to
post
2️⃣ Maybe it's because I'm not using a combination of inparty warmth minus outparty cold…coldness(?)..coldth(??)
Tried that too and found the same negative relationship!
comment in response to
post
Let’s look at some possible explanations (and rule them out):
1️⃣ Maybe people who are more polarized are also more politically conscious, which is related to more commitment to democratic norms?
Nah, I controlled for political interest and it does nothing.
comment in response to
post
I've seen this before in work by Campos & @cmfederico.bsky.social and @elijfinkel.bsky.social et al., especially when accounting for political sectarianism (othering + aversion + moralization). But I thought affective polarization was just unrelated, not negatively related!
comment in response to
post
For context: Affective polarization (how much people dislike the opposing party) is often blamed for democratic backsliding. But in my data, it’s negatively related to support for antidemocratic actions. Isn’t that the opposite of what we’d expect?
comment in response to
post
This graph is showing % who said “mostly support.” Other response options were “mostly oppose” and “not sure.” Independents were more often “not sure” than other groups. They may have been more opposed than supportive of some but I don’t think that was often the case
comment in response to
post
Take a look at my article for more: today.yougov.com/politics/art...
(11/11)
comment in response to
post
Overall, the degree of support for different movements seems to be a pretty good reflection for who Americans perceive to be worth protecting, which has come to differ substantially by which political party you affiliate with. (10/11)
comment in response to
post
And vice versa, some movements were more successful than supported. Interestingly, 56% of Americans think the Gay Rights movement has been successful, but only 48% support it. The MAGA movement is also seen as more successful than supported, though not by much. (9/11)
comment in response to
post
I also looked at movements that are widely supported but not seen as successful. The Native American Rights and Gun Control movements are the big ones here — more supported than successful by more than 30 points. (8/11)
comment in response to
post
I was kind of shocked by the party-over-identity finding, but it makes sense. It seems to be the case for more recent movements, likely because they have been more heavily politicized, and party identity has become an overarching, moral identity. (7/11)
comment in response to
post
I found the same thing with BLM support. Democrats—even White Democrats—were more supportive of BLM than Black people as a group were. Not the case for the Black Power or Slavery Abolition movements though. (6/11)
comment in response to
post
Some of this is probably due to education and the fact that women were more likely than men to say “not sure”, but even accounting for these didn’t take out all the differences. (5/11)
comment in response to
post
No, Democratic *men* are more supportive of all the women’s rights movements than women, as a group are — even women’s suffrage. (4/11)
comment in response to
post
For instance, Democrats are more supportive of every women’s rights movement we asked about than women as a group are. Maybe that’s because more women are Democrats? (3/11)
comment in response to
post
As usual, the data scream partisanship, but so much so that party affiliation often predicts support for social movements better than actually belonging to the identity group the movement advocates for. (2/11)
comment in response to
post
Lastly, thanks so much to my coauthors:
@brittanyehanson.bsky.social
@alleal.bsky.social Lindsay Novak, and @lindaskitka.bsky.social! We did the thing!
(END)
comment in response to
post
All in all, moral foundations may be better at predicting attitude positions than *moral* stances on issues, and their relationship with political orientation is still murky, but please check out the paper to dive in more! journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
(10/11)
comment in response to
post
Political differences were clearer when we asked moral foundation endorsement in the abstract (i.e., how relevant is harm to morality *in general* vs. how relevant is harm to abortion), but were mostly about harm for liberals and liberty for conservatives.
(9/11)
comment in response to
post
Interestingly, the authority foundation consistently predicted *weaker* moral conviction, meaning that the more people saw authority as relevant, the less they saw their attitudes as rooted in morality. That is, authority may be more of a *conventional* than moral value.
(8/11)
comment in response to
post
Most foundations predicted moral conviction most of the time, but their interaction with political orientation was a mess—We found some political differences in which foundations predicted moral conviction, but they were inconsistent and didn't always align with MFT.
(7/11)
comment in response to
post
If MFT is right, then the individualizing foundations should predict moral conviction for liberals (more than conservatives) and the binding foundations should predict moral conviction for cons (more than libs).
How did MFT do? Not terrible.. but not great.
(6/11)
comment in response to
post
But are these *moral* differences or political ones?
To test this, we examined the relationship between endorsement of each moral foundation and moral conviction about issues like facemask mandates, abortion, and concealed carry of firearms.
(5/11)
comment in response to
post
Moral foundations theory (MFT) says endorsing some foundations (care, fairness) predicts liberal positions & endorsing other foundations (loyalty, authority, purity) predicts conservative positions (e.g., endorsing authority predicts more approval of the death penalty).
(4/11)
comment in response to
post
What's the difference between moral conviction & attitude position?
Attitude position is how much I support/oppose something like abortion.
Moral conviction is how much I think my position on abortion is rooted in my morals. It’s the *moral* part of moral attitudes!
(3/11)
comment in response to
post
In this paper, we tested whether endorsing different moral foundation predicted moral convictions (rather than attitude positions) differently for liberals and conservatives.
(2/11)