@article{3796b67c140448e8a42510c2e5ee2b72,
title = "Affective Polarization Did Not Increase During the COVID-19 Pandemic",
abstract = "We document trends in affective polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our main measure, affective polarization is relatively flat between July 2019 and February 2020, then falls significantly around the onset of the pandemic. Three of five other data sources display a similar downward trend, with two of five data sources showing no significant change. A survey experiment shows that priming respondents to think about the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduces affective polarization.",
keywords = "coronavirus, group attitudes, Partisanship, political polarization, public opinion",
author = "Levi Boxell and Jacob Conway and Druckman, {James N.} and Matthew Gentzkow",
note = "Funding Information: We acknowledge funding from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Toulouse Network for Information Technology, and the Institute for Humane Studies. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-1656518. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The original collector of the data, the American National Election Study, and the relevant funding agency/agencies bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses. We thank Anna Wang and our other dedicated research assistants. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 L. Boxell et al.",
year = "2022",
doi = "10.1561/100.00021027",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "17",
pages = "491--512",
journal = "Quarterly Journal of Political Science",
issn = "1554-0626",
publisher = "Now Publishers Inc",
number = "4",
}