In the wake of recent political violence in the United States, a new study examines how partisan bias influences people’s reactions to such events. The study found that partisan bias significantly influences people’s judgment, leading them to prefer harsher penalties for political violence against those who share their political affiliation compared to political rivals. The findings were published in American Politics Research.
The research was motivated by growing concerns about partisan bias in public reactions to political violence, particularly in the highly polarized political climate of the United States. Recent events, such as the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and the violent incidents during Black Lives Matter protests, have highlighted the potential for political violence to exacerbate divisions and influence public judgment.
Prior research has indicated that most U.S. citizens categorically reject political violence in abstract terms. However, there has been limited exploration of how individuals react to specific, concrete episodes of political violence, especially when the partisanship of the actors involved is known. This gap in knowledge is significant because it leaves unanswered questions about the real-world implications of partisan bias in cases of political violence.
To investigate this, Justin Michael Zyla from Arizona State University conducted a study with 342 students from a large southwestern university. The participants were recruited from introductory political science courses and received course credit for their participation.
Participants were presented with a fictional report detailing a controversy at a college, where a student sent death threats to a history professor over perceived grading bias. The key experimental manipulation was the political affiliation of the professor, which was randomly varied across three conditions: Democrat, Republican, or unspecified (non-descript). This was embedded in the death threats, where the student accused the professor of failing them due to their political beliefs.
After reading the report, participants were asked to report their emotions (anger, anxiety, disgust, happiness, sadness, satisfaction), preferred penalty severity for the student, and their level of partisan strength (psychological attachment to their political party).
The study found significant evidence of partisan bias in participants’ reactions to political violence. When the victim of the death threats was described as sharing the participants’ political affiliation (a copartisan), they preferred harsher penalties for the perpetrator.
But when the victim was described as belonging to an opposing political group (an outparty member), participants’ reactions did not differ significantly from the control condition, where the victim’s political affiliation was unspecified. This suggests that the presence of an outparty victim did not evoke the same desire for harsher penalties.
“This experiment explored whether the ‘political’ in episodes of violence impacts how we react,” the researcher wrote. “Changing the partisan label of the victim – a few words in an otherwise detail-rich text –mattered in terms of how peers punished the perpetrator. This experiment hopes to contribute to conversations about how we, as a democratic society, construct institutions and policies that respond to political violence. How do we maintain principles dedicated to the rule of law and fairness in the presence of persistent partisan bias?”
Further analysis revealed that while anxiety played a central role in driving the partisan bias, anger did not significantly impact penalty preferences. Specifically, participants reported higher levels of anxiety when the victim was a copartisan, which in turn influenced their preference for more severe penalties, such as expulsion. This is notable because anger is often assumed to be a primary emotional driver in responses to political violence.
Additionally, the level of partisan strength did not vary significantly based on the political affiliation of the victim, suggesting that the psychological attachment to one’s political party did not mediate the observed bias.
The results provide evidence that partisan bias and emotional responses to political violence. But the study used a convenience sample of university students, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to the broader population. The reactions of older adults, non-students, or individuals with different socio-economic backgrounds might differ. Future research could build on these findings to explore additional emotional drivers and broader contexts, ultimately contributing to a more nuanced understanding of how we respond to political violence.
The study, “Partisan Bias in Episodes of Political Violence,” was published online March 28, 2024.