Priming Norms to Combat Affective Polarization

Abstract

The American public has affectively polarized such that partisans increasingly dislike the “other side,” and this may have deleterious consequences for a representative democracy. Yet, efforts to reduce partisan hostility arrive at mixed results. We propose a new approach that involves strategically priming civic norms with language tailored to a target audience. We argue that emphasizing group-based civic norms that invoke an “obligation to others” can reduce out-party animus. We test this approach on an important subgroup: U.S. military service members. Like the broader American public, service members have unfavorable feelings toward the opposing party, and these feelings appear to have become more negative in recent years. We use a survey experiment to demonstrate that priming an obligation to others civic norm attenuates affective polarization. Our study advances public opinion research on an understudied subgroup of the population, but more importantly, the theoretical argument has implications for addressing polarization and partisan discord among the mass public and other subgroups.