Replication Data for: 'Sleeping with the enemy': Partisanship and tolerance in online dating

The surge in political polarisation across Western societies has transcended political arenas, deeply influencing personal decisions. While such biases are often ascribed to out-group animosity, the question arises whether a person's political affiliation, or `party tag,' serves as a proxy for other distinguishing characteristics, potentially overemphasising partisanship's role in non-political choices. To explore this, we focus on online dating, examining how political and non-political attributes affect individuals' willingness to date those with opposing political views. Through a conjoint experiment with 3,000 UK participants, we aim to isolate the effects of partisanship from other confounding factors. Our findings challenge conventional wisdom, revealing that while the influence of partisanship is on par with more conventional criteria like physical appearance, tolerance towards differing political views emerges as a more potent factor. Our results also indicate important asymmetries in preferences among partisans. While both exhibit an in-party bias, Labour supporters were roughly twice as likely to choose co-partisan dates compared to Conservatives. Moreover, when participants were presented with counter-stereotypic profiles, the biases were mitigated among Conservatives but exacerbated among Labour supporters.