Negative partisanship is not more prevalent than positive partisanship

Lee and collaborators demonstrate, across a number of surveys and experiments, that distaste for the out-party (negative partisanship) is not substantially more prevalent than in-party attachment (positive partisanship). The dominant narrative among scholars and political pundits characterizes American partisanship as overwhelmingly negative, portraying citizens as more repelled by the opposing party than attached to their own party. To assess the valence of partisan identity, we use various measures collected from several new and existing nationally representative surveys and behavioural outcomes obtained from two experiments. Our findings consistently depart from the negative partisanship narrative. For the majority of Americans, partisanship is either equally positive and negative or more positive than negative. Only partisan leaners stand out as negative partisans. We pair these observational findings with experimental data that differentiate between positive group behaviour and negative group behaviour in the partisan context. We find that the behavioural manifestations of party identity similarly include both positive and negative biases in balance, reinforcing our conclusion that descriptions of partisanship as primarily negative are exaggerated.

Automated summary

The study shows that most Americans have either balanced positive and negative attitudes towards partisanship or lean more towards the positive side, with only partisan leaners exhibiting negative partisanship.