Seeing “Us” and “Them”: How Political Symbols Polarize Through Anger, Anxiety, and Enthusiasm

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how political symbols influence affective polarization through emotions. Integrating research on visual communication, social identity theory, and the affective contagion hypothesis, we theorized that partisan symbols compared to national symbols would exacerbate affective polarization—and that anger, anxiety, and enthusiasm mediate this process. An experiment (N = 1,013) found the expected emotional impact and mediation effects—partisan symbols compared to national symbols indirectly influenced affective polarization through these emotions. Theoretical implications are discussed in the context of mounting concerns over rising polarization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data and materials are available from the authors upon request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2024.2313082

Notes

¹ The pre-study manipulation check also tested images of the partisan animals fighting. However, those manipulations were unsuccessful as participants did not reliably say these made them think of the political parties rather than their country. This was surprising given that depictions of intergroup competition would be expected to make people focus on the conflict between their ingroup and outgroup (Tajfel, 1982). One possibility is that the fighting images may have had a backfire effect because of associations with too much aggression. It is also worth noting that, for the partisan conditions, we used the simplest possible versions of the partisan animals (blue donkey, red elephant) without stars or stripes to avoid accidentally invoking national identity via associations with the flag. See the online supplemental materials for stimuli and details.

² In addition to relying on prior literature, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to support the way these items were combined as shown in section five of the online supplemental materials. Further, robustness checks showed that the results remain consistent, with two minor exceptions, if the analyses are conducted using the single items instead of the combined indices as shown in section three of the online supplemental materials.

³ Respondents’ feelings toward their own side did not differ by treatment (p = .186).

⁴ Because the emotion indices had non-normal distributions, a robustness check was conducted, using the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test. These tests confirmed that the treatment had significant effects on anger (X² [1] = 32.78, p < .001), anxiety (X² [1] = 20.60, p < .001), and enthusiasm (X² [1] = 98.95, p < .001).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University of Texas at Austin [VPR Special Research Grant].

Notes on contributors

Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard

Christian Staal Bruun Overgaard (MSc, University of Southern Denmark) is a Knight Research Associate at the Center for Media Engagement and a doctoral student at the School of Journalism and Media at The University of Texas at Austin. He holds a BSc and an MSc in economics and business administration from the University of Southern Denmark. His research primarily relies on computational and experimental methods and focuses on the psychological and behavioral effects of news and social media—and the political consequences of these effects. He regularly presents his research at academic conferences like AEJMC and ICA.

Renita Coleman

Renita Coleman (Ph.D., University of Missouri, 2001) is Professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. She is associate editor at Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and has published widely on topics such as visual communication, ethics, and framing. Her latest book is Designing Experiments for the Social Sciences from SAGE. She was a newspaper reporter, editor, and designer for 15 years at The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), The Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, FL), and others.