Politically Moral: Moderate Partisans Morally Derogate Out-party Members, Even When Treated Fairly

Political polarization in the United States now entails partisan outgroup moral derogation. In order to examine the roles of political extremity, fairness, and political symmetry on out-party moral derogation, I employed the Ultimatum Game paradigm (n= 1070) where participants received fair or unfair offers by an in-party or out-party member. Results showed that self-identified moderate partisans morally derogated out-party members, even after being treated fairly. Additionally, these effects were politically symmetric. This suggests that political party identification can supersede other relevant information when making a moral judgment about a person, even for those who are not politically extreme and for those on the political left as well as the political right.