New research explores how citizens navigate trade-offs between political parties, revealing that altruistic concerns for others' welfare and spiteful tendencies against disliked groups significantly influence voting behavior. The study shows voters often prioritize policies helping those they identify with or dislike seeing benefits go to rival parties.
This psychological dynamic suggests party identification may be more complex than previously thought.
| Altruism and Spite in Politics: How the Mind Makes Welfare Tradeoffs About Political Parties was authored by Alessandro Del Ponte, Andrew W. Delton and Peter DeScioli. It was published by Springer in Pol. Behav. in 2021. |
