Degrees of Disrespect

When evaluating their own politicians, do partisans tolerate or punish the incivility now common in political discourse? While the answer is crucial to understand rising incivility, prior findings are mixed. I propose that co-partisans tolerate milder degrees of incivility, which out-partisans punish, but that a limit exists beyond which the rhetoric becomes too extreme for even the base. Consequently, to examine whether co-partisans tolerate or punish the incivility in current discourse, we must compare: 1) how strong incivility they will tolerate to 2) how strong the incivility in current discourse is. To make this comparison, I develop a method integrating survey experiments with crowdsourced content analysis, which maps stimuli onto the distribution of online incivility among Congress members. I find that co-partisans tolerate typical degrees of incivility, as the incivility in current discourse is rarely so extreme that favorability among co-partisans drops. However, typical degrees lower out-party favorability, reinforcing polarization.

在评价本党政治人物时，党派支持者会容忍还是惩戒当前政治话语中日益普遍的不文明言行？尽管该问题的答案对于理解政治话语不文明现象的愈演愈烈至关重要，但已有研究结论莫衷一是。本文提出，同党派支持者会容忍程度较轻的不文明言行，而对立党派支持者则会对此予以惩戒，但存在一个极端阈值：一旦言论逾越该阈值，即便政党核心选民也会认为其过于出格。因此，若要检验同党派支持者对当前政治话语中的不文明言行是持容忍还是惩戒态度，我们需要比对两项指标：1）同党派支持者所能容忍的不文明言行强度；2）当前政治话语中不文明言行的实际强度。为完成该项比对，本文开发了一种整合调查实验与众包内容分析的研究方法，该方法可将实验刺激材料映射至美国国会议员群体的网络不文明言行分布区间。研究发现，同党派支持者能够容忍当前政治话语中常见程度的不文明言行，因为当前政治话语中的不文明言行极少极端到足以拉低同党派支持者的好感度。然而，此类常见程度的不文明言行会降低对立党派支持者的好感度，进而加剧政治极化。