Social Identity, Selective Exposure, and Affective Polarization: How Priming National Identity Shapes Attitudes Toward Immigrants Via News Selection

We use three online experiments—two selection-based and one forced-exposure—to demonstrate that increasing the salience of national identity can promote affective polarization toward undocumented immigrants, both directly and indirectly, via the selection of pro- and counter-attitudinal articles about immigration. As anticipated, across both selection studies, priming national identity exacerbates polarization among immigration opponents. For that group, priming national identity also indirectly increases polarization via enhanced exposure to pro-attitudinal (i.e., anti-immigration) news. In one selection study, however, the prime’s polarizing effect is attenuated by increased exposure to counter-attitudinal (i.e., pro-immigration) news. These polarizing effects do not emerge among immigration supporters. Finally, a forced-exposure experiment more rigorously tests the causal model by assessing polarization when both the identity prime and message exposure are randomly assigned. We discuss practical and theoretical implications.