Study shows that electoral outcomes affect the way we treat other people

Study shows that electoral outcomes affect the way we treat other people

6 years ago
Anonymous $CLwNLde341

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-electoral-outcomes-affect-people.html

As party affiliation is a salient part of our social identity, especially around elections, authors expected that the results were experienced as an ego shock both by Democrats (negatively) and Republicans (positively). In particular, Democrats experienced the results as a threat, which undermines self-esteem and boosts in-group favoritism and out-group hostility.

In the pre-election stage of the experiment, people were asked their political affiliation and, then had to share a small sum of money with a group of three components, whose political affiliation was known. The groups could be composed of three political friends, two friends and an opponent, or two opponents and a friend. While Democrats would allocate around half the money to the rest of the group, irrespectively of their political affiliation, Republicans would yield significantly less money (around 36 cents on a dollar) to groups with one or two Democrats than to Republicans-only groups (58 cents).