Behavior, identity, and incongruency : when and how are political attitudes moved?

Abstract

Understanding political attitudes is indispensable to the study of politics. Focusing on the movement and movability of political attitudes, this research identifies and addresses the dual problem of persistence and polarization that characterizes the recent trends in political attitudes across many countries around the world. On the one hand, political attitudes have become increasingly resistant to change. On the other hand, efforts to nudge polarizing public attitudes toward moderation could also backfire, exacerbating attitudinal polarization and deepening socio-political divides.

Under what conditions and through what mechanisms would political attitudes move or persist? This thesis examines the question from a political psychological perspective, focusing on how attitudes can be influenced by behavior. While conventional wisdom sees attitude as guiding behavior (i.e., attitude --> behavior), social psychology research has shown that the causal arrow can also be reversed such that attitude (change) can result from behavior (i.e., attitude <-- behavior).

Drawing upon cognitive dissonance theory and social identity theory, I argue for the role of behavior-induced incongruency (i.e., attitude-behavior discrepancies) and group identification in explaining attitudinal movement. I hypothesize that the direction and magnitude of the movement of political attitudes are contingent upon the level of incongruency as well as the interaction between (in)congruency and group identity.

I contextualize the hypotheses in the China-Japan case and test them in two experimental modules embedded in a national survey in China. The results reveal that when reminded of past behavior that is incongruent with their attitudes, individuals' attitudes would become more moderated. Overall, the magnitude of attitudinal changes is positively associated with the level of incongruency experienced. For those whose starting attitudes are close to neutral, however, while a relatively high level of incongruency nudges them toward the midpoint, a relatively low level of incongruency backfires, i.e., pushing them toward the extremes. Bringing in the factor of group identity, I find that while in general, a Japan-related message that is incongruent with their attitudes nudges the Chinese participants' trust and perception of Japan toward moderation, such moderating effects tend to be either dampened or reversed when the message is endorsed by the out-groups compared to when it comes from the in-groups.

Exploring the individual processes underlying (lack of) attitudinal changes when dealing with incongruency, I conduct interviews with a sample of Chinese citizens who regularly consume Japanese anime yet hold anti-Japanese sentiments. I find that most of the interviewees do not perceive their enjoying Japanese anime while disliking Japan as contradictory. They resolve the incongruency by compartmentalization (i.e., viewing Japanese anime and Japan as a country separately); re-categorization (e.g., repositioning it in a broader category of art/entertainment; activating new categories by differentiating Japanese anime into left-wing/right-wing leaning); and/or disengagement (i.e., de-intensifying cognitive and emotional engagement).

The findings contribute to the study of political attitudes and political communication, inform the debate on backfire effects and political polarization, offer new insights on strategies of spontaneous dissonance coping, and have important implications for China-Japan relations.