Once again, the credit for the research to our latest updates go out to our RA, Lina Zündorf.
Our team consists of @aleininger.bsky.social and Nelly Buntfuß, as well as our second RA, Jonas Voelzke.

polarization.wiki

gitlab.com/felixgruenew...

The code for this website is also available online, if you are interested in how any of this works.

The use-cases section includes every article we cite and, beyond that, a large selection of articles that apply polarization measures.

If you feel like a paper or measure (maybe yours) is missing in our collection, please feel free to reach out to us :)

polarization.wiki/projects/pol...

Our R-package, polaR, makes all the code used for the visualizations available via Github. If you only want to download the data, the shiny app lets you download a csv-file with your individual sample.

(In this most recent update, we added information on coefficients of agreement, as proposed by van der Eijk (2001), as well as further examples of the social distance scale. They are soon to be implemented in the R-package as well)

We collected all the measures that we used for a review paper in one dataset and compiled them into this encyclopedia. You can find origins, definitions, but also the data: our interactive shiny app allows you to visualize trends of polarization with different measures, datasets and country samples.

Also using this to share this very good text: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

We shouldn’t criticize or try to soften the reaction to regressive/hostile politics. If we want to talk about dislike, we need to know what it is based on.

(and maybe outgroup homogeneity perception is one factor that shows how dislike is not based on policy differences but on identity mechanisms)

Danke, Katjana! :)

And if you don't want to scroll back up, here is the paper, again: doi.org/10.1080/0140...

The findings suggest that we should consider homogeneity perception in our discussions about intergroup relations. Especially when talking about affective polarization and outgroup animus: Dislike that is based on homogeneity perception is not based on actual political differences, but on identity.

I believe this might be explained by extrapolation of bad experiences to a group of parties, but also by fewer perceived connection points to the other camp. There's evidence for at least the 2nd point: the likelihood to switch votes across camps decreases w stronger outgroup homogeneity perception.

Hold tight because it doesn’t stop there, I can also show that the perception of homogeneity is connected to negative feelings in the outcome. The more homogenous you perceive the others, the less you like them. This also holds across time with different waves of the @gles.bsky.social.

Outgroup homogeneity is a known concept in Psychology and I apply it to left-right party camps (and others for anyone who looks at the appendix). Parties in the outcamp are perceived as closer 1) than they perceive themselves to be and 2) than those in the own camp.