Every person has various distinguishing features, like gender, age or cultural origin. These features serve us to assign ourselves and others to ‘social groups’. Likewise, a great variety of social groups coexists and interacts, which can have numerous positive effects for society. Yet in recent years, societal discourses combine (political) identity concerns to highlight group differences negatively. Where social groups used to live and interact (relatively) peacefully together, intolerance and socio-political conflict(s) appear to be on a rise, resonating now also on the political sphere.
Social psychologists highlight the importance of intergroup contact for reducing perceptions of differences between groups and to facilitate their cooperation. Yet, single party identities have become key features based on which contact and cooperation are being ruled out in the first place. The paper ponders the nature of socio-political identities and explores the conditions under which political identities become distinguishing features based on which individuals categorise each other. Stemming from social identity and identity complexity theories, in a survey-experiment conducted in Germany in 2017 (N=3360) it tests the interplay of the perceived similarity of political identities with the identity in terms of which one person perceives another, i.e. whether as individual or as representative of the group. First results let assume that seeing a person in terms of their group identity influences how their socio-political views affect others’ ability to cooperate with them in political and in private settings. Thus, the paper closes discussing the dramatic consequences which political identities can have for democratic co-existence.
Keywords: Political Parties, Political Identity, Social Identity, Intergroup Contact, Political Attitudes, Survey Experiments
