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.

在评价本党政治家时，党派支持者会容忍还是惩戒当前政治话语中愈发常见的不文明言行？尽管这一问题的答案对于理解政治话语中不文明言行的蔓延至关重要，但既有研究结论莫衷一是。本文提出，同党支持者（co-partisans）会容忍程度较轻的不文明言行，而对立党派支持者（out-partisans）则会对此加以惩戒，但存在一个临界阈值，一旦言行过激超过该阈值，即便对于本党核心选民而言也过于极端。因此，若要检验同党支持者会容忍还是惩戒当前政治话语中的不文明言行，我们必须开展两项对比：其一，他们所能容忍的不文明言行强度；其二，当前政治话语中不文明言行的实际强度。为完成此项对比，本文开发了一种融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国会议员群体的网络不文明言行分布之中。研究结果表明，同党支持者能够容忍典型程度的不文明言行，因为当前政治话语中的不文明言行极少极端到会拉低同党支持者的好感度。但此类典型程度的不文明言行会降低对立党派选民的好感度，进而加剧政治极化。