Is All Political Hatred Equal?

In a recent article published in the American Political Science Review, “A New Measure of Affective Polarization,” Christopher Federico, faculty, and Nicolas Campus, graduate student (Political Science), take a deeper look at affective polarization, a phenomenon where political partisans increasingly view their opponents with dislike, distrust, and hostility. 

Historically, researchers have measured affective polarization using a metric called “warmth bias;” essentially a metric that asks how warm or cold someone of a particular political party feels toward another. Campos and Federico argue that this measure is too simplistic, failing to capture the feelings and perspectives of everyday voters by instead zeroing in on how people feel toward political elites. To more effectively measure affective polarization, they developed a nine-item, multi-dimensional instrument called the Affective Polarization Scale (APS). The APS breaks partisan hostility down into three distinct psychological pillars: (1) othering, the belief that someone of an opposing party is fundamentally different and impossible to understand; (2) aversion, the active dislike and avoidance of opposing-party members; and, (3) moralization, the belief that one’s own political party aligns with moral principles that correctly define what is right and wrong.

Using their new scale, Campos and Federico found that aversion was by far the most consistent and powerful predictor of anti-democratic attitudes. People high in aversion were found to strongly support elites of their own party who break the rules, endorse political vindictiveness, and excuse the behavior of those in their party who transgress against individuals of rival political parties. Regarding moralization, those who heavily moralize their politics demonstrate deep connections to their own party, resulting in those individuals being more supportive of basic democratic norms and less supportive of anti-democratic rule-breaking. Finally, othering was found to be only weakly associated with one’s desire to actually dismantle the government or see violence done to those of another political party. 

Campos’ and Federico’s new scale effectively shows that not all political hatred is equal or dangerous. An individual who simply thinks the other political party is "different" (i.e., othering), or one who views their own side as righteous (i.e., moralization), may still respect democratic institutions. The individual truly dangerous to a democracy, however, is one who is driven by aversion. Such an individual is far more likely to maintain an active, toxic desire to socially excise the opposition, being far more willing to forgive or rationalize the actions of an individual of their own party who behaves immorally and/or breaks rules or laws.