What Do We Measure When We Measure Affective Polarization?

Affective polarization—the tendency of Democrats and Republicans to dislike and distrust one another—has become an important phenomenon in American politics. Yet, despite scholarly attention to this topic, two measurement lacunae remain. First, how do the different measures of this concept relate to one another—are they interchangeable? Second, these items all ask respondents about the parties. When individuals answer them, do they think of voters, elites, or both? We demonstrate differences across items, and scholars should carefully think about which items best match their particular research question. Second, we show that when answering questions about the other party, individuals think about elites more than voters. More generally, individuals dislike voters from the other party, but they harbor even more animus toward the other party’s elites. The research note concludes by discussing the consequences for both measuring this concept and understanding its ramifications. For nearly two decades, scholars have analyzed voters’ issue positions to determine whether the mass public is, in fact, polarized (Fiorina 2017). In recent years, however, there is a growing awareness that this does not fully capture partisan conflict in the contemporary United States. Regardless of where they stand on the issues, Americans increasingly dislike, distrust, and do not want James N. Druckman is the Payson S. Wilder Professor of Political Science and faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. Matthew S. Levendusky is a professor in the Department of Political Science, and by courtesy, in the Annenberg School of Communication, as well as distinguished fellow in the Institutions of Democracy at Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. The authors thank the Annenberg Public Policy Center for funding this project (M.S.L., Principal Investigator), Sam Gubitz and Natalie Sands for research assistance, and Joe Biaggio, Shanto Iyengar, Yanna Krupnikov, Yphtach Lelkes, the anonymous referees, and the editors for helpful comments. The study was preregistered with AsPredicted.org as study #7041. *Address correspondence to James N. Druckman, Northwestern University, Scott Hall, 601 University Place, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; email: druckman@northwestern.edu. Public Opinion Quarterly doi:10.1093/poq/nfz003 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /poq/advance-articleoi/10.1093/poq/nfz003/5486527 by U niersity of Penylvania Liraries user on 08 M ay 2019 to interact with those from the other party, a tendency known as affective polarization (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012). This divisiveness vitiates political trust (Hetherington and Rudolph 2015), hampers interpersonal relations (Huber and Malhotra 2017), and hinders economic exchanges (McConnell et al. 2018). Yet, two significant measurement lacunae remain. First, scholars use a wide-ranging assortment of items to measure affective polarization, but there is little sense of how these items relate to one another: Are they interchangeable? Second, these measures ask respondents to evaluate “the Democratic Party” or “the Republican Party. ” But whom do voters imagine when they answer such questions: ordinary voters or elected officials? Addressing these questions with an original survey experiment, we document how the different measures relate to one another, finding that nearly all of them are strongly interrelated. The exception is the social-distance measures, which we argue tap a distinctive aspect of affective polarization. Further, the results show that when people think about the other party, they think primarily about political elites rather than voters. While they dislike both elites and ordinary voters from the other party, they especially dislike the other party’s elites. These findings have important implications for how scholars measure affective polarization, and for our understanding of its underlying dynamic. What Is Affective Polarization, and How Do We Measure It? Affective polarization stems from an individual’s identification with a political party. Identifying with a party divides the world into a liked ingroup (one’s own party), and a disliked outgroup (the opposing party; Tajfel and Turner 1979). This identification gives rise to ingroup favoritism and bias, which is at the heart of affective polarization: the tendency of people identifying as Republicans or Democrats to view opposing partisans negatively and copartisans positively (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012, 406; Iyengar and Westwood 2015, 691). Scholars typically measure affective polarization via survey instruments (Iyengar et al. 2019). The most common is a feeling thermometer rating that asks respondents to rate how cold or warm they feel toward the Democratic Party and the Republican Party (Lelkes and Westwood 2017, 489). A second instrument asks respondents to rate how well various traits describe the parties. Positive traits include patriotism, intelligence, honesty, open-mindedness, and generosity; negative traits include hypocrisy, selfishness, and meanness (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012; Garrett et al. 2014). A third approach is to ask citizens to rate the extent to which they trust the parties to do what is right (Levendusky 2013). A final set of questions gauge how comfortable people are having close friends from the other party, having neighbors from the other Druckman and Levendusky Page 2 of 9 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /poq/advance-articleoi/10.1093/poq/nfz003/5486527 by U niersity of Penylvania Liraries user on 08 M ay 2019 party, and having their children marry someone from the other party (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012; Levendusky and Malhotra 2016). These items are known as social-distance measures, as they gauge the level of intimacy (distance) individuals are comfortable having with those from the other party. How do these various measures of affective polarization relate to one another? Prior studies provide little insight into this question; most studies include only one or two measures and do not explicitly compare them. Two general types of these measures exist: While thermometers, trait ratings, and trust measures are general attitudes about broad objects (i.e., parties), socialdistance items capture attitudes about particular behavioral outcomes (e.g., your child marrying someone from the other party). These two should be only marginally related, given how “[e]mpirical research has shown repeatedly that the relation between general attitudes and specific behaviors [and related measures] tends to be very low” (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010, 278). A distinct question concerns the targets of all of these measures: When someone rates “the Democratic Party” on a feeling thermometer, or rates whether “Democrats” are selfish, whom are they considering? Is it Democratic voters or elected officials like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? As Iyengar and his colleagues (2012, 411) acknowledge, the existing measures are ambiguous on this point: “We will not be able to clarify whether respondents were thinking of partisan voters or party leaders when providing their thermometer scores. ” The same is true for any of the other items; if someone says Republicans are untrustworthy, is that their Republican neighbor, or is that an assessment of President Trump? This distinction is not only crucial to understanding what people affectively envision when asked about the “party,” but it also underlines that people might feel differently toward other voters than they do toward elites.