psychology of the political divide

According to a recent study, Democrats value communion, while Republicans value agency.

Communion and agency form the “Big Two” dimensions structuring social psychology. The former includes values such as broad-mindedness, sociability, and warmth; while the latter includes values such as hrd work, ambition, and determination.

In a first study, Eriksson (2018) asked 318 Americans which of these values were the most important for society. It appeared that self-proclaimed Democrats placed communion much higher than agency (+48.5%), while the opposite was true for Republicans, who thought that agency was 35% more important than communion.

To the contrary, there was no difference when it came to competence values such as being skillful or intelligent.

In a second study, the researcher asked 750 self-identified Democrats and Republicans which of the two were, on average more sociable, ambitious, etc. than the other. Interestingly, Eriksson (2018) found that, although both groups were biased in favor of their in-group on the two dimensions, their bias was much stronger when it came to their preferred characteristics.

Source: Eriksson (2018)​