New research demonstrates that an individual’s political identity is related to their romantic and residential preferences. The findings, published in Politics and the Life Sciences, suggests that political beliefs play an important role in choosing romantic partners and preferred living locations, especially for those with strong partisan views, potentially exacerbating political polarization.
The research was based on niche construction theory, a concept from evolutionary biology. This theory posits that organisms, including humans, actively modify their environment and social contexts, influencing their own evolutionary trajectory. In the context of human behavior, this means that people are not just passive recipients of their social and political environment but active agents shaping their surroundings to better align with their beliefs and preferences.
The new research aimed to explore this theory in the modern political landscape of the United States, where increasing polarization suggests that political identities might be playing a key role in how individuals construct their social and physical niches – particularly in choosing life partners and living environments.
“This project was originally supposed to be a much broader attempt at incorporating evolutionary biology via niche construction theory to the social sciences,” explained study author Chano Arreguin, a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Rice University. “Admittedly, a grand theory of the social sciences as a grad student might be too much to chew on. I modified my approach a bit and sought to make connections with existing bodies of literature which still speak to the effort but make for a more publishable piece.”
“To my fortune, the existing work I was interested in seemed readily alignable with the foundation of niche construction theory. Partisans are increasingly sorting geographically, partisans increasingly dislike out-partisans, and partisans do not want to engage romantically with out-partisans. From these largely independent literatures, it became clear to me that a key connection needed to be made: I needed to see 1) if those with negative affect toward the out-party are the individuals who perceive lower chances of finding romantic partners in out-party dominated niches and 2) are the least willing to move to these niches. Intuitively, this might seem obvious, but it had never been theorized, much less empirically tested.”
The research consisted of four studies, each focusing on different aspects of how political affiliation affects personal choices.
Study 1: Political Mate Preferences
In the first study, 203 participants, primarily aged 18-45, from an online platform were asked to choose prospective partners from pairs of hypothetical profiles. These profiles varied in political affiliation, attractiveness, wealth, and other attributes. This study aimed to replicate existing findings on political mate choice while introducing new individual attributes for consideration.
Study 1 found a strong aversion to choosing partners from the opposing political party, comparable to levels of attractiveness and salary. Interestingly, Independents were not as negatively affected by out-partisan selection pressures as Republicans and Democrats.
“One surprise was that Independents seem to not be as affected by out-partisan mate pressures, as Republicans and Democrats are,” Arreguin said.
Study 2 and 3: City-Level Political Niche Preferences
The second and third studies expanded the scope to city-level preferences, involving 206 and 6,018 participants respectively. Participants were presented with vignettes of being hired by a company with multiple city locations and were asked to choose where they would prefer to live. Cities were described with various attributes, including the partisan composition and general living conditions. Study 3, conducted with a more representative sample, also examined the role of racial and ethnic demographics in these choices.
In Studies 2 and 3, both Democrats and Republicans showed a preference for living in cities with a higher share of co-partisans. This tendency was particularly pronounced among those with negative feelings towards the out-party. Again, Independents displayed a different pattern, showing less concern about the partisan composition of potential new cities.
Study 4: Neighborhood-Level Preferences
The final study, with 1,010 participants, looked at neighborhood-level choices. This survey included additional factors like commute time, community political engagement, school quality, religiosity, and the number of single people. The focus here was on how these attributes influenced the willingness to move to a neighborhood, specifically for single men actively seeking a partner.
Study 4 revealed that neighborhood partisan characteristics significantly influence the willingness to move, especially for single men who are more active in seeking partners. The study suggested that the availability of potential mates in a neighborhood is a crucial consideration for this group.
“There are some scholars in political science who are concerned about the prospects of civil war-like behaviors arising in the United States,” Arreguin told PsyPost. “I am not as concerned about this, at least not in the short-term (although the Capitol Hill attack on January 6, 2021, was certainly a shock). That said, the process that I outline illustrates the sowing of seeds for the conditions that may one day make something like a civil war much more likely.”
“It seems that in just a few decades Republicans and Democrats have created distinct cultures, and people who strongly identify as one or the other are increasingly different people. Add to this, geographic sorting, and diverging views about sexuality, morality, and reproduction. It is then not hard to imagine the typical Democrat or Republican 100 years from now as being very different from each other.”
“I’m not saying more distinct cultures (or groups of people) inevitably result in conflict,” Arreguin said. “I’m saying that increasingly different groups with negative affect toward each other certainly increases the probability of such conflict. Still, I am optimistic about the cross-cutting activities we engage in (e.g., sports), but this project should give us some pause.”
While the studies offer insightful observations, they have limitations. The primary constraint is the lack of real-world behavioral data. Future research could involve collaborations with dating apps to capture actual geographic movement and mate choice behaviors. This approach would provide a more comprehensive understanding of how political preferences play out in real-life decisions.
Additionally, future research could delve deeper into the causes of partisan homophily – the tendency to associate with like-minded individuals – and integrate these into a mate success framework. This could include examining how choice-based, social structure-based, and convergence-based homophily interact with political identities in mate selection.
“The biggest limitation to this work is the fact that the behavior is collected via survey, and is not using more ‘real world’ sources like dating app data,” Arreguin explained. “That said, the methodology employed is solid for drawing causal inferences about mate and niche preferences/choices, which was a necessary addition to the political mate choice literature. This would be much more difficult with ‘real world’ data without experimental manipulation.”
“Another caveat, is that the argument is not that partisan mate pressure is the predominant factor for partisan sorting. As I make clear in the paper, there are a host of economic and non-economic reasons for moving. Here, I simply emphasize for whom partisan mate pressures seem to be a stronger influence (those with negative affect toward the out-party) when opportunities to move arise. As for lingering questions, I think there is a gender component that needs further exploration. I only briefly touch on it here, but it certainly requires a more comprehensive treatment.”
The study, “Partisan niche construction: Out-party affect, geographic sorting, and mate selection“, was published October 12, 2023.
