Motivated Reasoning in Identity Politics: Group Status as a Moderator of Political Motivations

Autor(en)

Ming Manuel Boyer, Loes Aaldering, Sophie Lecheler

Abstrakt

Western democracies are increasingly defined by identity politics, where politics appeals to both political and other social identities. Consequently, political information processing should depend not just on political identity, but also on other identities, such as gender, race, or sexuality. For any given issue, we argue that the extent to which reasoning is motivated by one’s political identity depends on citizens’ group status in other relevant identities, that is, that political identity more strongly motivates high-status group members than low-status group members for issues of identity politics. A survey experiment (N = 1012) concerning a gender quota policy shows that political identity motivates men more strongly than women, leading to political polarization between left-wing and right-wing men, but not women. This suggests that political motivated reasoning should be addressed differently in situations of identity politics, and urges the consideration of group status as a conditional factor of motivated reasoning.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Journal

Political Studies

Band

70

Seiten

385-401

Anzahl der Seiten

17

ISSN

0032-3217

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720964667

Publikationsdatum

11-2020

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Sociology and Political Science

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 5 – Geschlechtergleichheit

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/6c25db17-696f-4c48-9cbd-094e7f53da88