The Impact of Partisan Identity on Voter Support after Candidate Transgression

It is not rare for US politicians to commit multiple moral transgressions in office, yet also to maintain the support of their voters. This may occur because voters experience their political party as a social identity, and thus feel motivated to support their party regardless of a candidate’s actions. Three studies explore this possibility at three different levels of cognitive processing. In Study 1, participants (n = 215) rated 200 behaviors as transgressive or non-transgressive as quickly as possible. When “thinking fast” about behavior, strong partisans were more likely to categorize ingroup behaviors as transgressive than outgroup behaviors, and made categorizations more quickly. High-identifiers may experience a disgust or startle response when first learning of transgression, thus quickening RT and increasing the likelihood behavior is categorized as transgressive. In Study 2, participants (n = 731) rated political ingroup, outgroup, or job candidate (control) transgressive behaviors. When given time to deliberate about behaviors, the opposite effect from Study 1 emerged: Participants who were strongly identified with their political party were more likely to rate ingroup behaviors as less wrong and more excusable than the same behaviors committed by outgroup or control candidates, providing evidence of ingroup biased motivated reasoning. Study 3 investigated the extent of transgression severity voters are willing to endure from ingroup candidates before abandoning a favored candidate. Across 70 trials, participants (n = 493) chose to vote for an ingroup candidate or outgroup candidate after learning the ingroup candidate transgressed. Statistical modeling revealed that people were more likely to abandon ingroup candidates as transgression severity increased, and that participants with a stronger ideological identity were more likely to vote for transgressive ingroup candidates than less-identified individuals. Furthermore, Republicans possessed a higher severity threshold than Democrats, such that they voted for the ingroup candidate for more severe transgressions than Democrats.