Replication Data for: Beyond Observational Relationships: Evidence from a Ten-country Experiment that Policy Disputes Cause Affective Polarization

While scholars document associations between competing parties’ policy disputes and citizens’ cross-party hostility, i.e., affective polarization, we lack causal comparative evidence of how different types of ideological disagreements shape partisan affective evaluations. We investigate this issue with a priming experiment across 10 western publics, which prompts some respond-ents to answer questions inviting them to discuss debates over either cultural or economic is-sues, versus a control group that receives a non-political prompt. Respondents in the economic and cultural priming conditions express greater distrust of out-partisans, and among respondents who received cultural priming, those who discuss immigration in their open-ended responses express far more distrust towards opponents – an effect driven by right-wing respondents who discussed immigration. These findings provide comparative evidence that economic and cultural debates cause affective polarization, with immigration as a primary cultural driver.

尽管已有学者证实了竞争政党间的政策争端与民众跨党派敌意（即情感极化（affective polarization））之间存在关联，但目前仍缺乏关于不同类型意识形态分歧如何塑造党派情感评价的因果性比较研究证据。本研究依托一项覆盖10个西方公众群体的启动实验（priming experiment）探讨该问题：将部分受访者分为两组，引导其分别讨论文化议题或经济议题相关辩论，对照组则接受非政治启动提示。结果显示，接受经济议题启动与文化议题启动的受访者，对异党派者的不信任程度更高；其中在接受文化议题启动的受访者中，那些在开放式回答中提及移民问题的受访者，对反对者的不信任感显著更强——这一效应主要由讨论过移民问题的右翼受访者所驱动。本研究发现提供了比较性证据，表明经济与文化议题的辩论会引发情感极化，而移民问题则是其中核心的文化驱动因素。