Emotion, Affective Polarization, and Online Communication

Abstract

Abstract American partisans increasingly do not like one another. This hostility between Democrats and Republicans, often labeled affective polarization, affects not only the stability of democracy but also the non-political aspects of daily life. This chapter first addresses the psychology of affective polarization and the interactions between social identity, emotions, and the changing media environment. The reciprocal relationship between emotions, particularly anger, and online behaviors is then discussed. In an original analysis of Reddit data, this chapter highlights how users are increasingly likely to post angry and negative content about the out-party. This type of content increases anger and incivility and creates a vicious cycle that exacerbates affective polarization. Finally, ways in which researchers have tried, with some success, to harness digital media to decrease affective polarization are discussed.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 10 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.