Attitude Polarization Research Articles

POLARIZATION OF LOCAL COMMUNITY ORIENTATION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECO-RURAL TOURISM IN KERINCI REGION, JAMBI PROVINCE, INDONESIA

Rural areas are increasingly the focus of exploration by various stakeholders. However, local communities, as landowners in these regions, often do not reap the full benefits. This issue stems from their limited involvement in regional development and a lack of awareness about ongoing projects. Local communities play a crucial role in the success of rural development, and understanding their attitudes is vital.This study aimed to explore local community attitudes toward eco-rural tourism development in Kerinci Regency, Jambi Province. A closed-ended questionnaire, designed with a "One Score One Indicator" system, assessed various factors including socio-cultural aspects, conservation, ethnic politics, economics, regional development, tourism, and landscape ecology across six villages. The analysis of local community orientation was conducted using quantitative descriptive methods and One-Way ANOVA statistical tests.Results indicated a positive polarization in community attitudes across all villages, showing strong support for eco-rural tourism. By focusing on the identified indicators, local communities are motivated to collaborate and enhance their rural areas through eco-tourism initiatives. The findings suggest that these communities possess significant potential to develop their regions in line with eco-rural tourism principles. Additionally, the insights gained can inform the creation of eco-rural tourism programs that emphasize community involvement and leverage local strengths. This approach aims to ensure that rural communities benefit from the exploration and development occurring in their areas.

Social Media, Affective Polarization, and Collective Action in Peru

Affective polarization has become a worldwide phenomenon that impacts the ability to engage in meaningful dialogue and reflective consideration of different available courses of action. Social media use has been linked to phenomena such as homophily and echo chambers, which contribute to the polarization of attitudes and beliefs. At the same time, social media use has been tied to collective action. This study seeks to analyze the relationship between the political use of social media, affective polarization, and collective action. It proposes two models: the first evaluates the mediating effect of the SIMCA variables in the relationship between the political use of social media and collective action; the second proposes a pathway whereby the political use of social media and its impact on collective action is mediated first by affective polarization and subsequently by the SIMCA model variables. Using a sample of 659 Peruvian social media users ranging from 18 to 39 years old, the authors found that participative efficacy alone mediates the relationship between the political use of social media and collective action. Affective polarization by itself did not mediate this relationship. However, when considering participative efficacy, the findings indicate a pathway from political use of social media to collective action mediated by both affective polarization and participative efficacy. This article reflects on how the production of affective polarization in virtual spaces among like-minded individuals can impact participative efficacy, and subsequently collective action.

Long-run trends in partisan polarization of climate policy-relevant attitudes across countries

ABSTRACT We summarize long-run trends in partisan polarization of voters’ climate policy-relevant attitudes across 36 countries and multiple decades (1993–2020). We find substantial growth in partisan polarization of these attitudes in the US, other Anglophone countries and much of Western Europe, but not elsewhere. Comparing Western European to Anglophone countries, partisan polarization is more prominent on different climate policy-relevant attitudes, and primarily involves supporters of different party types. Observed partisan polarization patterns are not well explained by changes in either linkage to economic ideology or levels of general societal disagreement on climate policy-relevant questions. Growing partisan polarization does not generally reflect all partisan groups becoming more accepting of climate reform yet diverging because of differing rates of change. Instead, what disagreements there are on these matters have become increasingly tied to party support. Our findings highlight the increasing difficulty of achieving sustained political consensus for effective climate reform across many countries.

Confronting Core Issues: A Critical Assessment of Attitude Polarization Using Tailored Experiments

A long-standing debate in political psychology considers whether individuals update their beliefs and attitudes in the direction of evidence or grow more confident in their convictions when confronted with counter-attitudinal arguments. Though recent studies have shown that instances of the latter tendency, which scholars have termed attitude polarization and “belief backfire,” are rarely observed in settings involving hot-button issues or viral misinformation, we know surprisingly little about how participants respond to information targeting deeply held attitudes, a key condition for triggering attitude polarization. We develop a tailored experimental design that measures participants’ core issue positions and exposes them to personalized counter-attitudinal information using the large language model GPT-3. We find credible evidence of attitude polarization, but only when arguments are contentious and vitriolic. For lower valence counter-attitudinal arguments, attitude polarization is not detected. We conclude by discussing implications for the study of political cognition and the measurement of attitudes.

Dyslexia: ‘The right diagnosis … The wrong treatment’

AbstractThe polarisation of attitudes towards dyslexia appears to be contingent upon the awareness of the implications of adopting a medical model to interpreting dyslexia (as a medical ‘condition’) or applying an educational overlay, based upon difficulties in certain areas, to interpreting and making provision for those with dyslexia. Specifically, it underscores the difficulties dyslexics have in reading and the comprehension of what has been read. Furthermore, it accentuates the approaches taken in the 1980s and the turn of the century to dyslexia was, for these interviewees, unfitting. However, it raises other questions about whether the current practice is suited to the needs of those with dyslexia, or whether a universal offer is made, regardless of specific need. In the wake of this research, three emergent themes occur, dyslexia and stigmatisation, the impact of stigmatisation and poorly suited provision upon self‐esteem and the stress this generates. As key practitioner points, this disquisition underlines the need to tailor provision for inclusive education based upon the needs of the individual with dyslexia. It further illumines the stress of unsuitable provision, manifesting the imperative nature of adequate training and resourcing for dyslexia.

Intraindividual Conflicts Reduce the Polarization of Attitudes

Societies are increasingly divided about political issues such as migration or counteracting climate change. This attitudinal polarization is the basis for intergroup conflict and prevents societal progress in addressing pressing challenges. Research on attitude change should provide an answer regarding how people might be persuaded to move away from the extremes to take a moderate stance. However, persuasive communication often most strongly affects those who hold a moderate attitude or are undecided. More importantly, barely any research has explicitly aimed at mitigating extreme attitudes and behavioral tendencies. Addressing this gap, this article summarizes research demonstrating that (different types of) intraindividual conflicts might be a means to mitigate polarized attitudes. Goal conflicts, cognitive conflicts, counterfactual thinking, and paradoxical thinking facilitate cognitive flexibility. This, in turn, seems to initiate the consideration of alternative stances and mitigate the polarization of attitudes. We discuss the limitations of the existing research and the potential of this approach for interventions.

The impacts of ideological polarization among political elites on citizens’ attitudes toward opposing-party supporters via an affective channel

ABSTRACT Recent studies have reported that the ideological polarization of party elites induces citizens’ affective polarization toward parties in the United States, while others have found that American citizens’ affective polarization strengthens their biased attitudes toward opposing-party supporters. This study tests the implication of the literature that affective polarization mediates between the ideological polarization of party elites and biased attitudes against fellow citizens using survey experiments in the United States and South Korea. We find three common results between the two countries. First, the manipulation of the ideological distance between the two parties does not influence respondents’ relative affect between them. Second, however, there appears to be a positive correlation between the relative affect and biased attitudes toward fellow citizens. Finally, mediation analysis further reveals that the manipulation does not affect the biased attitudes through the relative affect. We conclude by briefly discussing the key findings.

Polarization of gender role attitudes across Europe

ABSTRACT Value polarization is one of the key factors in societal development. This research focuses on whether opinions concerning gender roles in the domestic and public spheres are polarized in European societies, a topic still under-investigated. Based on the fifth wave of European Values Study data (2017–2020), the study shows that gender role attitudes in the domestic sphere are more polarized than those in the public sphere. Polarization by education, level of income, migration background, and degree of religiosity is stronger for gender role attitudes in the domestic sphere, whereas polarization by gender is stronger for gender role attitudes in the public sphere. Both gender role attitudes in the public and domestic spheres are most strongly polarized by education. At the same time, belonging to a social group with higher education, higher income, and lower religiosity can promote more progressive views towards gender roles. Opinions in Eastern European countries tend to seem more polarized than in Western European countries, even if with some exceptions. In countries with a higher level of gender equality, the level of polarization is a bit lower, while in countries where there is a remarkable rise of anti-gender narratives, opponent and conflictual views are higher.

Opinion polarization of immigration and EU attitudes between social classes – the limiting role of working class dissensus

ABSTRACT This study examines polarization in political opinions toward immigration and the European Union between occupational classes, i.e. structural polarization. We maintain that two conditions must hold to indicate structural opinion polarization: high between-class divergence and high within-class consensus. Our main contribution is to study these two conditions systematically for a wide variety of immigration and EU-related topics. Using data from four high-quality German surveys spanning three decades, we document three main findings. First, we find substantial between-class divergence: respondents in typical working class occupations express substantially more unfavorable opinions about immigration and the EU than the upper classes across the majority of survey indicators. Second, however, we also observe considerable opinion heterogeneity within the working class. This lack of within-class consensus limits the potential of mobilizing the working class as a group on the basis of anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiments. Third, while we do not document durable increases in structural opinion polarization over time across most of our opinion indicators, we do draw attention to those individual indicators that show relatively high polarization. Overall, our results suggest limited opinion polarization between occupational classes on immigration and EU issues in Germany.

Polarisation of Climate and Environmental Attitudes in the United States, 1973-2022

Since the early 1990s, increasing political polarisation is among the greatest determinants of individual-level environmental and climate change attitudes in the United States. But several patterns remain unclear: are historical patterns of polarisation largely symmetrical (equal) or is rather asymmetrical (where one set of partisans shifts more than others)? How have polarisation patterns have changed over time? How generalizable are polarization patterns across different environmental and climate change attitudes? We harmonised four unique sets of historical, pooled cross-sectional survey data from the past 50 years to investigate shifts across seven distinct measures of citizen environmental and climate change attitudes. We find that contemporary attitudes are polarised symmetrically, with Democrats (higher) and Republicans (lower) attitudes are equidistant from the median. But the historical trends in polarisation differ by attitudes and beliefs. In particular, we find evidence of two distinct historical patterns of asymmetric polarisation within environmental and climate change attitudes: first, with Republicans becoming less pro-environmental, beginning in the early 1990s, and second, a more recent greening of Democratic environmental attitudes since the mid-2010s. Notably, recent increases in pro-environmental attitudes within Democrats is a potentially optimistic finding, providing opportunities towards overcoming decades-long inertia in climate action. These findings provide a foundation for further research avenues into the factors shaping increased pro-environmental attitudes within Democrats.

Racial Polarization in Attitudes towards the Criminal Legal System

Abstract Existing research often views attitudes toward the U.S. criminal legal system as reflections of punitive sentiment, overlooking racial differences in how people respond to questions related to crime and punishment. Using over four decades of nationally representative survey data from the General Social Survey, we employ latent class analysis to examine racial variation in attitudes about the U.S. criminal legal system across time. We find that among White Americans, support for increased spending to combat crime corresponds with support for harsher courts and the death penalty. In contrast, many Black Americans support increased spending on crime but oppose harsher courts and the death penalty, indicating simultaneous concern about crime and a more punitive criminal legal system. Although aggregate trends in punitiveness change similarly across race and time, we show that while preferences for punitive policies remain high among White Americans, the proportion of Black Americans who are simultaneously concerned about crime and a punitive criminal legal system rose from 14 percent in 1994 to 56 percent in 2018. These results highlight the salience of race in shaping how people evaluate the criminal legal system and draw attention to racial polarization in views on punishment and justice.

How algorithmically curated online environments influence users’ political polarization: Results from two experiments with panel data

Social media platforms are often accused of disproportionally exposing their users to like-minded opinions, thereby fueling political polarization. However, empirical evidence of this causal relationship is inconsistent at best. One reason could be that many previous studies were unable to separate the effects caused by individual exposure to like-minded content from the effects caused by the algorithms themselves. This study presents results from two quasi-experiments in which participants were exposed either to algorithmically selected or randomly selected arguments that were either in line or in contrast with their attitudes on two different topics. The results reveal that exposure to like-minded arguments increased participants’ attitude polarization and affective polarization more intensely than exposure to opposing arguments. Yet, contrary to popular expectations, these effects were not amplified by algorithmic selection. Still, for one topic, exposure to algorithmically selected arguments led to slightly stronger attitude polarization than randomly selected arguments.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Parental Attitudes Toward Routine Childhood Vaccines.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have impacted parental attitudes toward childhood vaccines. However, few data sources followed attitudes before and after onset of the pandemic. We used data from a parental survey to describe the effect of the pandemic on parental attitudes toward childhood vaccines. Data were analyzed from the Health eMoms survey which randomly sampled birthing parents in Colorado from 2018 to 2021 on several health topics including vaccine hesitancy. Population weighted multivariable regression was used to measure the association between overall vaccine hesitancy and 5 individual hesitancy questions and different COVID-19 pandemic periods: prepandemic (April 2018-February 2020); pandemic prevaccine (April 2020-December 2020); and pandemic postvaccine (January 2021-August 2021), adjusting for demographic factors. Overall, 20.4% (726/3553) of respondents were vaccine hesitant. Vaccine hesitancy during pandemic time periods was not different from the prepandemic period (prevaccine adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.65-1.04; postvaccine aOR = 1.07, 95% CI = 0.85-1.34). In analyses of individual hesitancy questions, parents were more likely to be unsure about trusting vaccine information in the pandemic postvaccine time period compared with the prepandemic period (aOR = 2.14; 95% CI = 1.55-2.96), and less likely to be unsure about their hesitancy toward childhood vaccines (aOR = 0.48; 95% CI = 0.27-0.84). The COVID-19 pandemic was not associated with changes in parental vaccine hesitancy overall, although there were changes in trust about vaccine information and a polarization of vaccination attitudes.

Deepening the divide: Does globalization increase the polarization between winners and losers of globalization?

Does globalization increase polarization in attitudes toward international trade, immigration, and international organizations? Research from a variety of fields and disciplines assumes this relationship, but empirical studies are few. In this study, I examine whether globalization increases the attitudinal divide between education groups, with education being one of the main characteristics of social stratification distinguishing winners from losers of globalization. I use data from three waves of the National Identity Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from 1995 to 2013 covering 29 countries (n=79,101) to analyze between- and within-country interactions between the level of globalization and education in explaining attitudes toward globalization. The results show that while the attitudinal divide between educational groups is larger in countries with higher levels of globalization (between effect), polarization decreases as the level of globalization increases within countries (within effect), as persons with lower and medium levels of education become more positive toward globalization under increasing levels of globalization. The results are consistent across a wide range of robustness checks, including controlling for occupational class as a further distinction between winners and losers of globalization. The findings suggest that the expectations about a widening attitudinal divide between winners and losers of globalization should be treated with more caution.

From Incidental Exposure to COVID-19 Coping: The Influence of Expression and Perceived Networks on Social Media and Messaging Apps

ABSTRACTResearch has established the important role of incidental exposure in facilitating political learning, participation, as well as attitude polarization. Extending this line of work to public health crisis contexts, this study examines how pro-attitudinal and counter-attitudinal incidental exposures predict individuals’ expressive behaviors on social media and messaging apps (e.g. WhatsApp and LINE), and the subsequent coping outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis of an online survey in Taiwan showed that incidental exposure was related to expressive behaviors on social media and LINE, which in turn predicted coping outcomes, regardless of whether the information affirmed or undermined individuals’ opinions. However, the relationships between pro-attitudinal but not counter-attitudinal incidental exposure and expressive behaviors varied by perceived network homogeneity both on social media and LINE.

Touching the cornerstone: An illustrative example of the effects of stigma and discrimination on vaccine-hesitant parents

ObjectivesThe concept of vaccine hesitancy encompasses multiple views on the subject. However, there has been an increasing polarization of the discourse on vaccine hesitancy leading to the stigmatization of those parents who expressed doubts or concerns regarding vaccination practices. The present study aimed to explore the drivers and consequences of polarized discourses on vaccination in the Portuguese context. This paper is part of a broader study which aims to gain a deeper understanding about the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy at the European level. Study designA qualitative research design was used. MethodsThe sample was comprised of thirty-one Portuguese vaccine hesitant parents who were interviewed. A thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews was performed which allowed us to identify key themes. ResultsThe results showed that the labelling of vaccine-hesitant parents as ‘anti-vaxxers’ along with social media play a crucial role in promoting the polarization of vaccine-related attitudes. The stigmatization of vaccine hesitant parents has a disruptive impact on their social network leading them to search for online platforms where they can exchange vaccines-related information without being discriminated. ConclusionsThe stigma and discrimination experienced by vaccine-hesitant parents stimulated that hesitancy becomes more entrenched. Therefore, pluralism should be used to tailor vaccination promotion campaigns to different targets, promoting its reach and efficacy.

Online Interaction Turns the Congeniality Bias Into an Uncongeniality Bias.

Online phenomena like echo chambers and polarization are believed to be driven by humans' penchant to selectively expose themselves to attitudinally congenial content. However, if like-minded content were the only predictor of online behavior, heated debate and flaming on the Internet would hardly occur. Research has overlooked how online behavior changes when people are given an opportunity to reply to dissenters. Three experiments (total N = 320; convenience student samples from Germany) and an internal meta-analysis show that in a discussion-forum setting where participants can reply to earlier comments larger cognitive conflict between participant attitude and comment attitude predicts higher likelihood to respond (uncongeniality bias). When the discussion climate was friendly (vs. oppositional) to the views of participants, the uncongeniality bias was more pronounced and was also associated with attitude polarization. These results suggest that belief polarization on social media may not only be driven by congeniality but also by conflict.

Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing

Many critics raise concerns about the prevalence of ‘echo chambers’ on social media and their potential role in increasing political polarization. However, the lack of available data and the challenges of conducting large-scale field experiments have made it difficult to assess the scope of the problem1,2. Here we present data from 2020 for the entire population of active adult Facebook users in the USA showing that content from ‘like-minded’ sources constitutes the majority of what people see on the platform, although political information and news represent only a small fraction of these exposures. To evaluate a potential response to concerns about the effects of echo chambers, we conducted a multi-wave field experiment on Facebook among 23,377 users for whom we reduced exposure to content from like-minded sources during the 2020 US presidential election by about one-third. We found that the intervention increased their exposure to content from cross-cutting sources and decreased exposure to uncivil language, but had no measurable effects on eight preregistered attitudinal measures such as affective polarization, ideological extremity, candidate evaluations and belief in false claims. These precisely estimated results suggest that although exposure to content from like-minded sources on social media is common, reducing its prevalence during the 2020 US presidential election did not correspondingly reduce polarization in beliefs or attitudes.

The attitudinal space framework: Embracing the multidimensionality of attitudinal diversity

Attitude polarization describes an increasing attitude difference between groups and is increasingly recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon. However, a unified framework to study polarization across multiple dimensions is lacking. We introduce the attitudinal space framework (ASF) to fully quantify attitudinal diversity. We highlight two key measures-attitudinal extremization and attitudinal dispersion-to quantify across- and within-group attitudinal patterns. First, we show that affective polarization in the US electorate is weaker than previously thought based on mean differences alone: in both Democrat and Republican partisans, attitudinal dispersion increased between 1988 and 2008. Second, we examined attitudes toward wolves in Germany. Despite attitude differences between regions with and without wolves, we did not find differences in attitudinal extremization or dispersion, suggesting only weak attitude polarization. These results illustrate how the ASF is applicable to a wide range of social systems and offers an important avenue to understanding societal transformations.

Self-Polarization: Lionizing Those Who Agree and Demonizing Those Who Disagree

Numerous recent texts have explained societal polarization, emphasizing biased input through increased accessibility of extreme partisan information. We examined instead the possible role of biased output through biased attribution of personality traits to issue partisans. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that attributing personality traits to those who agree versus disagree with an attributor on controversial social issues might lead attributors to adopt more polarized impressions and behavioral intentions toward issue partisans, as well as to adopt more polarized attitudes toward the issue itself. These hypotheses were supported with two different social issues—abortion and kneeling during the national anthem. The results were interpreted as consistent with previous theory and research on both attributional bias and self-generated attitude polarization.