Intergroup Identities, Moral Foundations, and Their Political Consequences: A Review of Social Psychology of Political Polarization by Piercarlo Valdesolo and Jesse Graham (Eds)

Excerpt

The 2016 presidential election in the USA has been extraordinary in many ways. Particularly notable is the explicit tribalism and nativism spurred by Republican candidate Donald Trump, and its politically polarizing reactions across the ideological spectrum. Though polarization, the phenomenon by which Democrats and Republicans became more ideologically extreme and disconnected from one another, has become the norm in American politics (Abramowitz, 2010; Fiorina, Abrams, & Pope, 2011; Hetherington & Weiler, 2009), the current level of vitriol is unprecedented. Any glance at social media or cable news demonstrates intractable divisions and a fundamental lack of understanding between Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives. But what has brought us to this point, and how can researchers understand the mechanisms and political implications of this process? …