Vital Victories and Disastrous Defeats: Affective Polarization, Meanings of Voting and Acceptance of Election Results

This study examines an overlooked manifestation of affective polarization, namely how partisans see the meanings of voting of the outgroup party supporters. The focus is on how “dangerous” the ingroup would find the out-party winning the election to be. This is important because it might have consequences on how much sore a loser one will end up to be after the election. We investigate two research questions: a. How does affective polarization relate to perceptions of outgroup meanings of voting? b. Is there a link between perceptions of outgroup meanings of voting and satisfaction with/acceptance of the election results? We test our preregistered hypotheses using survey data from three different contexts: the 2022 elections held in the USA (N = 4000), Brazil (N = 2000) and Italy (N = 1500). The results will inform scholars about the extent to which affective polarization is connected to citizens’ views on the electoral process, and the extent to which they view outgroup party supporters as corrupting the electoral process.