The results of a recent article “Affect, Not Ideology: A Social identity Perspective on PolarizAtion” by Iyenger, Sood, and Lelkes in Public Opinion Quarterly (gated) probably won’t come as news to many: Democrats and Republicans dislike one another. The article provides an interesting take on the polarization debate, however. The authors argue that affect, not ideology, is the most appropriate way to think about polarization.
We would like to reiterate that our principal goal has been to reframe the debate over polarization in terms of affect rather than ideology. the evidence is strong that partisans are affectively polarized.
This figure captures the essence of the argument.
From Iyengar et al., “Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization”
Americans have bridged many of our differences on race and religion, but man we hate the folks from the other political party!