Identity Anchors: Tribes, Traits, and Echo Chambers

Abstract This chapter explores why certain people in certain situations are more likely to be affectively polarized between the rival Brexit identities. We show that ideological extremity on the issue of EU integration is only weakly correlated with measures of both ingroup affinity and outgroup animosity. Rather than ideology, we therefore focus on the roles of personality and ‘echo chambers’ in shaping levels of affective polarization. First, some personality types appear to be simply more predisposed to Brexit tribalism than others in that they strongly identify with their ingroups and harbour animosity towards the outgroups. Specifically, we show that those high in the personality traits of narcissism and neuroticism (more antagonistic and more anxious people) are most likely to embrace affective polarization around Brexit. Second, we also show that people embedded in echo chambers formed by friends and family who share their political identity are more drawn to tribal politics. By contrast, echo chambers shaped by social media use or geographical sorting appear to play a much smaller role in sustaining Brexit identities and affective polarization.