Replication Data for: Is Affective Polarization Driven by Identity, Loyalty, or Substance?

Partisan Americans like members of their own party more than members of the opposing party. Scholars often interpret this as evidence that party identity or loyalty influence interpersonal affect. First, we reassess previous studies and demonstrate that prior results are also consistent with what we would predict if people cared only about policy agreement. Next, we demonstrate the difficulty of manipulating perceptions of party identity without also manipulating beliefs about policy agreement, and vice versa. Finally, we show that partisans care much more about policy agreement than they do about party loyalty when the two come into conflict. Our analyses suggest that partisan Americans care about policy agreement, we have little convincing evidence that they care about partisan identity or loyalty per se, and scholars will have to find new research designs if they want to convincingly estimate the effects of identity or loyalty independent of policy substance.具有党派倾向的美国民众对本党成员的好感度显著高于反对党成员。学者们常将此现象解读为党派身份或忠诚度对人际情感存在影响的佐证。首先，我们对既往研究开展重新评估，结果显示：若人们仅在意政策共识的匹配度，此前的研究结论也与我们的理论预测相符。其次，我们证实了，在不操纵人们对政策共识认知的前提下，操控其对党派身份的感知存在极大难度，反之亦然。最后，我们发现，当政策共识与党派忠诚度产生冲突时，有党派倾向的民众对政策共识的重视程度远高于党派忠诚度。我们的分析表明，具有党派倾向的美国民众确实在意政策共识的匹配度，但几乎没有令人信服的证据表明他们本身会在意党派身份或忠诚度；若学者希望精准估算脱离政策实质的身份或忠诚度所产生的独立影响，就必须采用全新的研究设计方案。