Replication Data for: How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

Scholars have reached mixed conclusions about the implications of increased political polarization for citizen decision-making. In this paper, we argue that citizens respond to ideological divergence with heightened affective polarization. Using a survey experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample of U.S. citizens, we find that increased ideological differences between political figures produce increasingly polarized affective evaluations, and that these differences are especially large among respondents with stronger ideological commitments and higher levels of political interest. We provide further support for these findings in an observational study of citizens’ evaluations of the U.S. Senators from their state. We also find that the polarizing effects of ideological differences can be largely mitigated with biographical information about the public officials, which suggests that the pernicious consequences of ideological polarization can be overcome by focusing on matters other than political disagreement.学界关于政治极化（political polarization）加剧对公民决策的影响尚未形成统一结论。本文提出，公民会因意识形态分歧加剧而产生更强烈的情感极化（affective polarization）。本研究依托针对美国公民的全国代表性样本开展的调查实验，发现政治人物间的意识形态差异越大，公民的情感极化评价就越强；且这种效应在意识形态信念更坚定、政治关注度更高的受访者中尤为显著。我们通过针对本州美国参议员的公民评价开展的观测研究，为上述发现提供了进一步支撑。此外，研究还发现，通过公开公职人员的生平信息，可大幅缓解意识形态差异带来的极化效应，这表明若将关注点置于政治分歧之外的议题，即可克服意识形态极化带来的有害后果。