Replication Data for: Do External Threats Reduce Affective Polarization? An Experiment on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

In many countries, partisans have become increasingly biased in how they evaluate others based on political affiliation. We suggest that this increase in affective polarization may in part be caused by changes in the global power distribution which caused many countries to experience a long period without external (military) threats. To study the importance of external threats, we conduct a priming experiment to examine how making Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 salient causally influences affective polarization and collaboration in the U.S. We find that priming Americans with Russia's military aggression leads to a modest reduction in affective polarization and an increase in cooperativeness as measured by behavior in an incentivized coordination game. Surprisingly, the effect of making Russia's invasion salient does not depend on perceived cross-party disagreement about the conflict. These results suggest that researchers should also consider international relations to understand within-country polarization and willingness to collaborate.

在诸多国家中，政党支持者基于政治身份评判他人时的偏见程度日益加深。我们认为，情感极化（affective polarization）的加剧，在一定程度上或源于全球权力格局的变迁——这一变迁使得诸多国家得以长期免于外部（军事）威胁。为探究外部威胁的影响作用，我们开展了一项启动实验（priming experiment），以检验让受试者感知到2022年俄罗斯对乌克兰的全面军事入侵这一操作，会如何从因果层面影响美国国内的情感极化与合作意愿。研究结果显示，向美国民众提示俄罗斯的军事侵略行为，可使情感极化程度出现小幅降低，同时提升合作意愿——该合作意愿通过激励式协调博弈（incentivized coordination game）中的行为表现进行衡量。令人意外的是，提示民众关注俄乌冲突这一操作的影响效果，并未因受试者感知到的党派间对该冲突的分歧程度而产生差异。上述研究结果表明，学界在探究一国内部的极化现象与合作意愿时，也应将国际关系因素纳入考量范畴。