Political Identity and Trust

Political polarization is an important phenomenon that has motivated many recent popular and academic articles. The emergence of polarization is often explained as being driven by those with different political identities having dislike or even hatred for one other. However, polarization can also be driven by beliefs that the "other side" simply cannot be trusted. In this study, through a set of incentivized experiments, we discover that polarization is more likely driven by incorrect beliefs than a distaste for others. Although this finding is encouraging since incorrect beliefs should be