Affective polarization has been explained by two main theories: social identity theory suggests party-based feelings increase with political relevance, while others argue extreme actors drive polarization. This survey experiment assigns randomly either a candidate's ideology or their party to test which factor creates stronger negative reactions from respondents. Respondents showed significantly greater affective polarization toward the out-party's ideology than its assigned party label alone.

Research Design: Random assignment of candidate attributes (party vs. ideology) in a survey experiment design

Key findings revealed that ideological cues had much stronger emotional impact on voters than partisan ones, especially when those ideologies were perceived as extreme. The effect was particularly pronounced when the out-party's ideology appeared more extreme.

Policy Implications: These results challenge common assumptions about polarization drivers and suggest targeted policy solutions might be more effective than identity-based approaches in reducing political animosity.