Polarization in Black and White

Recent scholarship has shown that affective polarization in the US is on the rise: “ordinary Americans increasingly dislike and distrust those from the other party” (Iyengar et al., 2019). This is generally considered a negative phenomenon, especially for governance and democracy. Through a brief online survey with a balanced sample of Black and White respondents, the aim of this study is to make descriptive inference about the relative levels of affective polarization across race using novel behaviorally-focused measures; and about the relative importance of affective polarization to Black and White respondents. Secondarily, we seek to understand some of the reasons for any racial differences we may find.