Perceptions of Political Deviants in the US Democrat and Republican Parties

Abstract

People who deviate from group norms pose problems for their ingroup, but not all forms of deviance are equivalent. Six experiments (N = 1,653) investigated lay understandings of subjective group dynamics by assessing people's beliefs about how others would perceive two types of deviants within U.S. political parties—political moderates and extremes. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that participants thought Democrats and Republicans, respectively, would show less approval of a moderate ingroup political candidate than an extreme ingroup political candidate. Experiment 3 demonstrated that participants thought Democrats would show less approval of a moderate Democratic campaign volunteer than an extreme Democratic campaign volunteer. Experiments 4 and 5 replicated Experiments 1 and 2 in ideologically diverse samples. Experiment 6 extended these findings by demonstrating that people's expectation that Republicans will show less approval of moderate ingroup members than extreme ingroup members extends to rank-and-file party members. People intuitively understand subjective group dynamics and this understanding may have important consequences for political behavior and discourse.