Polarisation is predicated on us clearly delineating ourselves into groups based on a set of beliefs, such as those relating to political parties and interest groups. This can quickly lead to affective polarisation (AP). It is typically measured by taking the difference between positive feelings towards the in-group and negative feelings towards the out-group. Whilst the differences between groups in beliefs hasn’t increased too much in recent years, several studies have shown that how the groups feel about one another has become more polarised in the UK and especially the US.
You might like to consider for a moment a group that you really like and one that you really dislike. I suspect your feelings of hate towards the latter are much stronger than your feelings of love towards the former. The concept of defining oneself by an “anti-identity” plays a significant role in our understanding and analysis of AP. You might identify yourself as being the kind of person who is more against an out-group than in favour of an in-group.
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