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Scholars in many fields have long noted the importance of social context in the development of political ideology. Recent work suggests that political ideology also has a heritable component, but no specific gene variant or combination of variants associated with political ideology have so far been identified. Here, we hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences will tend to be more liberal, but only if they are embedded in a social context that provides them with multiple points of view. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we test this hypothesis by investigating an association between self-reported political ideology and the 7R variant of the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), which has previously been associated with novelty seeking. Among those with DRD4-7R, we find that the number of friendships a person has in adolescence is significantly associated with liberal political ideology. Among those without the gene variant, there is no association. This is the first study to elaborate a specific gene-environment interaction that contributes to ideological self-identification, and it highlights the importance of incorporating both nature and nurture into the study of political preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent do partisan media influence political attitudes and behavior? Although recent methodological advancements have improved scholars' ability to identify the persuasiveness of partisan media, past studies typically rely on self-reported measures of media preferences, which may deviate from real-world news consumption. Integrating individual-level web-browsing data with a survey experiment, we contrast survey-based indicators of stated preferences with behavioral measures of revealed preferences based on the relative volume and slant of news individuals consume. Overall, we find that these measurement strategies generate differing conclusions regarding heterogeneity in partisan media's persuasive impact. Whereas our stated preference measure raises the possibility of persuasion by crosscutting sources, our revealed preference measures suggest that, among consumers with more polarized media diets, partisan media exposure results in limited attitude change, with any observed effects driven primarily by politically concordant sources. Together, these findings underscore the importance of careful measurement for research on media persuasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A functioning democracy relies on social interactions between people who disagree—including listening to others' viewpoints, having political discussions, and finding political compromise. Yet social life in the contemporary United States is characterized by a relative lack of interaction between Democrats and Republicans (or, social polarization). We argue that political anger contributes to social polarization by causing Americans to cut off ties with opposing partisans. We first draw on data from the American National Election Studies and the Wesleyan Media Project to show that the mass public is increasingly angry and that politicians often seek to elicit anger. We then present results from a survey experiment on nearly 3,500 Americans, finding that the exogenous introduction of anger leads partisans to socially polarize across a range of settings. Our findings suggest that increasing levels of political anger paralyze politics and harm democracy by influencing Americans' social interactions and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does party competition affect political activism? This paper studies the decision of party supporters to join political campaigns. We present a framework that incorporates supporters' instrumental and expressive motives and illustrates that party competition can either increase or decrease party activism. To distinguish between these competing predictions, we implemented a field experiment with a European party during a national election. In a seemingly unrelated party survey, we randomly assigned 1,417 party supporters to true information that the canvassing activity of the main competitor party was exceptionally high. Using unobtrusive, real-time data on party supporters' canvassing behavior, we find that respondents exposed to the high-competition treatment are 30% less likely to go canvassing. To investigate the causal mechanism, we leverage additional survey evidence collected two months after the campaign. Consistent with affective accounts of political activism, we show that increased competition lowered party supporters' political self-efficacy, which plausibly led them to remain inactive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens to partisanship when a party undergoes rapid and visible elite-led changes that dilute its traditional brand? We address scholarly debates on the stability of mass partisanship by analyzing the consequences of the major brand change (marked by policy moderation and scandal) experienced by the leftist Brazilian Workers Party (PT) between 2002 and 2006. Analyzing a survey panel with interviews spanning this period, we find that many Brazilian citizens alternated between petismo and independence but rarely crossed party lines. They switched, we demonstrate, in response to political events. While the PT's brand dilution drove away some traditional petistas, we observe two other dynamics: the rise of a new brand associated with the successful incumbent president (Lula) attracted new adherents, and amid this instability, a core of petistas stood by their party. Our findings suggest that scholarship on partisanship has established a false dichotomy between stability and instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have argued that childhood experiences strongly impact political attitudes, but we actually have little causal evidence since external factors that could influence preferences are correlated with the household environment. We utilize a younger sibling’s gender to isolate random variation in the childhood environment and thereby provide unique evidence of political socialization. Having sisters causes young men to be more likely to express conservative viewpoints with regards to gender roles and to identify as Republicans. We demonstrate these results in two panel surveys conducted decades apart: the Political Socialization Panel (PSP) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). We also use data collected during childhood to uncover evidence for a potential underlying mechanism: families with more female children are more likely to reinforce traditional gender roles. The results demonstrate that previously understudied childhood experiences can have important causal effects on political attitude formation [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous studies have found that both political orientations (Alford, Funk, and Hibbing 2005) and voting behavior (Fowler, Baker, and Dawes 2008; Fowler and Dawes 2008) are significantly heritable. In this article we study genetic variation in another important political behavior: partisan attachment. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we show that individuals with the A2 allele of the D2 dopamine receptor gene are significantly more likely to identify as a partisan than those with the A1 allele. Further, we find that this gene's association with partisanship also mediates an indirect association between the A2 allele and voter turnout. These results are the first to identify a specific gene that may be partly responsible for the tendency to join political groups, and they may help to explain correlation in parent and child partisanship and the persistence of partisan behavior over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]