Base Thinking
Ideological Favoritism and In-Group Favoritism: A Double Dissociation of U.S. Progressives and Conservatives
Johanna Woitzel & Alex Koch
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
People appreciate others who seem similar to themselves. Two well-documented similarity-attraction effects are in-group favoritism (i.e., preference for in-groups over out-groups) and ideological favoritism (i.e., preference for the groups whose ideologies align [vs. conflict] with one’s own beliefs). There is debate about whether ideological favoritism is stronger among conservatives, progressives, or neither, and research has yet to explore ideological asymmetry in in-group favoritism. Across five studies (Ntotal = 6,631), we confirmed a double dissociation: ideological favoritism was stronger among U.S. progressives, whereas in-group favoritism was stronger among U.S. conservatives. This pattern was robust across different samples of perceivers and groups and across various measures of aligned ideological beliefs, shared group membership, and attitudes toward the groups (i.e., judgments and feelings). We discuss potential explanations for the double dissociation. Certain psychological differences between conservatives and progressives (e.g., community orientation and cosmopolitanism) may direct their attention to different markers of allegiance.
Emotions and Policy Views
Eva Davoine et al.
Harvard Working Paper, July 2025
Abstract:
This paper investigates the growing role of emotions in shaping policy views. Analyzing citizens’ social media postings and political party messaging over a variety of policy issues from 2013 to 2025, we document a sharp rise in anger on both the supply side (content provided by policy makers) and the demand side (emotional responses by citizens) since 2016. Content generating anger drives significantly more engagement. While anger in policymakers’ discourse follows cycles tracking shifts in political power, anger among citizens seems to have been persistently triggered and does not revert back. We then conduct two nationwide online experiments in the U.S, exposing participants to video treatments that induce positive or negative emotions to measure their causal effects on policy views. The results show that negative emotions increase support for protectionism, restrictive immigration policies, redistribution, and climate policies but do not reinforce populist attitudes. In contrast, positive emotions have little effect on policy preferences but reduce populist inclinations. Finally, distinguishing between fear and anger, we find that anger exerts a much stronger influence on citizens’ policy views, in line with its growing presence in the political rhetoric.
Does American identity still bind us together? A replication of Levendusky’s experiment (2018)
Rongbo Jin
Politics, Groups, and Identities, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does American identity still bind us together? As scholars explore approaches to mitigate affective polarization, one promising intervention -- priming a Common Ingroup Identity (CII) through national identity -- has attracted significant attention. However, recent findings suggest that this intervention may not be as effective as once believed. Through a replication of Levendusky's (2018) experiment, and a conceptual replication using Nationscape and American National Election Studies survey data, this study uncovers two critical findings. First, Levendusky’s treatment is no longer effective in constraining affective polarization in the current political context. Second, negative feeling toward the nation is closely associated with intensified out-party animosity. This research contributes to our understanding of the limitations of depolarization interventions and highlights the potential negative consequences that may arise when national identity is activated in a hyperpolarized environment.
Shapeshifters and Starseeds: Populist Knowledge Production, Generous Epistemology, and Disinformation on U.S. Conspiracy TikTok
Alice Marwick et al.
Social Media + Society, July 2025
Abstract:
This article investigates the intersection of identity, power, and knowledge production on U.S. ConspiracyTok, a genre of TikTok videos promoting conspiracy theories ranging from harmless speculation to harmful disinformation. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of 202 highly viewed videos, we examine how identity markers such as race and gender shape who is empowered or undermined in conspiratorial narratives, and how creators construct and circulate “evidence” to support their claims. We find that American ConspiracyTok is populated largely by young, non-White, and/or female creators who challenge the stereotype of the White, male conspiracy theorist. These creators interpellate audiences through visible identity markers, fostering a sense of intimacy and trust. Marginalized groups are often cast as victims, while institutions like science, government, and media are portrayed as villains. Creators construct legitimacy through visual media, personal anecdotes, deep lore, and remixing fictional and mainstream texts -- engaging in a form of populist knowledge production within a generous epistemology that welcomes divergent truths and alternative worldviews. These practices blur the lines between entertainment and ideology, often mimicking academic, or journalistic knowledge production while rejecting institutional authority. While ConspiracyTok can serve as a form of standpoint epistemology that empowers minoritized creators and critiques systemic injustice, it can just as easily reinforce bias and spread disinformation. ConspiracyTok is a site of vernacular theorizing where epistemology and identity are deeply entangled, offering both a critique of mainstream power and a cautionary tale about the populist appeal of conspiratorial thinking.
Some assembly required: Unpacking the content and spread of Wayfair conspiracy theory on Reddit and Twitter
Dror Walter et al.
New Media & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
Wayfair, an American furniture and home goods retailer, garnered sudden attention across social media in 2020, particularly Twitter and Reddit, due to a conspiracy theory linking the company to child trafficking. The short-lived, well-delineated nature of this theory, coupled with its simultaneous emergence across multiple platforms, makes it a distinct case for studying the dynamics of online conspiracy development and spread. Using intermedia agenda-setting theory and computational approaches, we analyzed 1.2 million posts to explore cross-platform interactions. We examined how platform affordances shaped discourse and enabled the conspiracy’s dissemination. Reddit’s anonymity and detailed discussions sustained narratives, while Twitter amplified emotional content and broadened the audience. Hourly time-series analysis reveals a bidirectional influence: Reddit set thematic agendas that Twitter amplified, while Twitter’s emotional content shaped Reddit’s discussions. These findings shed light on the digital development of child abuse conspiracy theories while advancing the understudied aspects of intermedia agenda-setting literature.
Republicans are flagged more often than Democrats for sharing misinformation on X’s Community Notes
Thomas Renault, Mohsen Mosleh & David Rand
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 24 June 2025
Abstract:
We use crowd-sourced assessments from X’s Community Notes program to examine whether there are partisan differences in the sharing of misleading information. Unlike previous studies, misleadingness here is determined by agreement across a diverse community of platform users, rather than by fact-checkers. We find that 2.3 times more posts by Republicans are flagged as misleading compared to posts by Democrats. These results are not base rate artifacts, as we find no meaningful overrepresentation of Republicans among X users. Our findings provide strong evidence of a partisan asymmetry in misinformation sharing which cannot be attributed to political bias on the part of raters, and indicate that Republicans will be sanctioned more than Democrats even if platforms transition from professional fact-checking to Community Notes.
Partisanship, political alignment, and charitable donations
Bouke Klein Teeselink & Georgios Melios
Public Choice, June 2025, Pages 523-538
Abstract:
This paper examines how alignment with the government influences beliefs about the efficiency and role of government, and examines the behavioral consequences of these beliefs. In particular, we examine how support of versus opposition to the government affects people’s charitable donations. For both Republicans and Democrats, we find that alignment with the government leads to a reduction in charitable donations. Specifically, when accounting for government spending, supporters of the incumbent government decrease their charitable contributions, while detractors increase theirs. We explain this result by documenting a shift in people’s beliefs about the efficiency and normative role of government.
Listening, Race, Partisanship, and Politics: How Socio-Demographics, Conversational Topics, and Dyadic Properties Affect Listening
William Eveland, Osei Appiah & Christina Henry
Political Communication, July/August 2025, Pages 616-639
Abstract:
In this paper, we test multiple individual level, dyadic, and contextual variables -- many via experimental methods -- to understand factors that influence apophatic political listening, which Dobson (2014) refers to as an “ideal” form of listening for democracy. Our findings are based on combined data (N > 3000) from two US quota sample surveys employing a 4 (topic) × 3 (discussant relationship) × 2 (racial similarity) × 2 (partisan similarity) factorial experimental design. Not only do some socio-demographics -- such as partisanship (Democrat) and having friends who are members of racial or partisan out-groups -- increase apophatic listening but above and beyond that three of the four manipulated contextual variables also affect listening, sometimes in surprising ways. Importantly, some significant interactions between our manipulated racial and partisan similarity factors and socio-demographic variables such as respondent race and outgroup friendships reveal that a complex mix of factors has implications for the extent of apophatic listening. For example, we found that Democrats were most likely to listen to fellow Democrats of the out-race and were least likely to listen to Republicans of the same race. By contrast, among Republicans, listening was least to Democrats of their same race, and higher and roughly equal for out-race Democrats and all Republicans.
Can Truth-Seeking Triumph Over Tribalism? Evidence from Ideological Reversals Amongst Economists
Matt Knepper & Brian Wheaton
University of California Working Paper, February 2025
Abstract:
Research in economics often carries direct political implications, with findings supporting either right-wing or left-wing perspectives. But what happens when a researcher known for publishing right-wing findings publishes a paper with left-wing findings (or vice versa)? We refer to these instances as ideological reversals. This study explores whether such researchers face penalties -- such as losing their existing audience without attracting a new one -- or if they are rewarded with a broader audience and increased citations. The answers to these questions are crucial for understanding whether academia promotes the advancement of knowledge or the reinforcement of echo chambers. In order to identify ideological reversals, we begin by categorizing papers included in meta-analyses of key literatures in economics as “right” or “left” based on their findings relative to other papers in their literature (e.g., the presence or absence of disemployment effects in the minimum wage literature). We then scrape the abstracts (and other metadata) of every economics paper ever published, and we deploy machine learning in order to categorize the ideological implications of these papers. We find that reversals are associated with gaining a broader audience and more citations. This result is robust to a variety of checks, including restricting analysis to the citation trajectory of papers already published before an author's reversal. Most optimistically, authors who have left-to-right (right-to-left) reversals not only attract a new right-wing (left-wing) audience for their recent work, this new audience also engages with and cites the author's previous left-wing (right-wing) papers, thereby helping to break down echo chambers.
Book Bans in American Libraries: Impact of Politics on Inclusive Content Consumption
Uttara Ananthakrishnan et al.
Marketing Science, July-August 2025, Pages 933-953
Abstract:
Banning of books has become increasingly prevalent and politically polarizing in the United States. Although the primary goal of these bans is to restrict access to books, conversations about the bans have garnered attention on a wider scale. This increased attention to bans can either have a chilling effect or can influence consumers to read the banned books. In this study, we use a novel, large-scale data set of U.S. library book circulations and evaluate the impact of high-profile book bans on the consumption of banned books. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that the circulations of banned books increased by 12%, on average, compared with comparable nonbanned titles after the ban. We also find that banning a book in a state leads to increased circulation in states without bans. We show that the increase in consumption is driven by books from lesser-known authors, suggesting that new and unknown authors stand to gain from the increasing consumer support. Additionally, our results demonstrate that books with higher visibility on social media following the ban see an increase in consumption, suggesting a pivotal role played by social media. Using patron-level data from the Seattle Public Library that include the borrower’s age, we provide suggestive evidence that the increase in readership in the aggregate data is driven, in part, by children reading a book more once it is banned. Using data on campaign emails sent to potential donors subscribed to politicians’ mailing lists, we show a significant increase in mentions of book ban-related topics in fundraising emails sent by Republican candidates. We also provide suggestive evidence on the impact of the rhetoric around these events on donations received by politicians.