Intellectual Humility and Political Partisanship: Examining Individual Difference Correlates of Affective Polarization Open Access

Abstract

Affective polarization refers to negative feelings held among voters in each party toward members of the opposing party and negative feelings toward opposing partisan information. It presents a problem, as it has permeated every level of American politics and rendered it more difficult to achieve bipartisan consensus on crucial policy issues. The present study examined whether intellectual humility buffered against affective polarization as well as other measures of negative partisanship and political identity. A sample of 526 American adults were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service and administered an online survey. Intellectual humility was measured using four scales, Leary’s Intellectual Humility Scale, the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale, and two Specific Intellectual Humility Scales for the domains of religion and politics, respectively. Affective polarization was measured using feeling thermometers that gauged the levels of anger, disgust, and contempt, and feelings of disgust participants had towards members of the opposing party, as well as those same feelings in reaction to the thought that of a member of their close family marrying a member of the opposing party. Measures of political belief, party identification, political knowledge, and ideological constraint were gathered. Finally, levels of partisan forgiveness were measured using a short vignette followed by questions. Results were analyzed using correlations, hierarchical regressions, and factor analyses. As predicted, higher levels of intellectual humility were associated with lower levels of affective polarization, non-significantly to political belief certainty and strength, and associated with higher levels of partisan forgiveness. 

Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1

           Political Polarization……………………………………………………………………………………………………….......1

           Affective Polarization…………………………………………………………………………………………………….........2

           Intellectual Humility……………………………………………………………………………………………………….......5

           Hypotheses………………………………………………………………………………..................................................8

Method……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9

           Participants……………………………………………………………………………….................................................9

           Procedure………………………………………………………………………………...................................................10

           Measures…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….......10

Results…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..18

References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..25

Tables……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...29

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, Social Psychology, Personality Political Science, General
Keyword	Personality Politics Intellectual Humility
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Scott Lilienfeld , Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Stephan Hamann, Emory University Dr. Alan Abramowitz, Emory University

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