Moral Identity, Political Identity, and Polarisation in England and the United States

Politicians’ moral behaviors affect voter evaluations, although not all voters respond negatively to all violations. In some cases, citizens are quite willing to accept moral violations by politicians of their own party, while decrying those of the other. The result can be increasing polarisation in evaluations of parties and politicians, fed by both citizens' political identity and moral identity. Prior research has shown the substantive role partisanship plays in influencing responses to moral violations. Yet, like all people, voters have multiple identities, including moral identities. To date, few studies have considered moral identity in the context of moral transgressions by politicians. This study examines how the internalisation of partisan and moral identities as social identities condition evaluations of politicians caught in moral violations in two different democracies. Using a 6 × 3 between‐subjects vignette study in the U.S. and England, we asked voters to respond to politicians’ moral violations, randomly varying the moral principle violated (Care/Fairness/ Loyalty/Authority/Sanctity/Social Norm violation-as control) and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan-US, Conservative/Labour/Nonpartisan-England). We find that greater internalisation of moral identity results in lower evaluations of a transgressing politician across both countries. Citizens showing less internalisation of moral identity are more likely to support their own partisan politician regardless of moral violations, while those with more internalised moral identities show reduced partisan polarisation. Polarisation may thus be fed in part by those citizens for whom violations of moral values are less important that supporting their own partisan politicians.