Social Group Appeals in Party Rhetoric: Effects on Policy Support and Polarization

Can parties and politicians increase support for their policy positions by adding appeals to social groups? Social groups provide simple cues that heuristically help voters to decide whether they support a policy. We argue that the effect of group appeals crucially depends on respondents' group affect and the valence of the group appeal. Among those with a positive attitude toward a group, adding a positive group appeal to a policy statement should increase support for the policy statement, while adding a negative appeal (i.e., against the group) should decrease support. Among those with negative attitudes toward a group, the opposite effects should occur. We test our expectations with two survey experiments. Our results indicate that the addition of group appeals substantially influences the evaluations of voters and leads to higher polarization. Social group appeals are useful to political parties, but these rhetorical tools may reinforce attitude polarization and group stereotypes.