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://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/motivated-reasoning-in-identity-politics-group-status-as-a-moderator-of-political-motivations(6c25db17-696f-4c48-9cbd-094e7f53da88).html