Přehled o publikaci

Affective polarization increasingly influences interpersonal evaluations, with partisan identities extending beyond political attitudes to affect trust, cooperation, and social preferences in non-political contexts. While previous research has highlighted the role of partisan-motivated reasoning in shaping these biases, it remains unclear whether moral considerations can moderate such tendencies. This study explores the interplay between moral behavior, self-interest, and partisan alignment in shaping evaluations of others within a non-political, interpersonal context. Using two complementary experimental studies conducted in the Czech Republic, we examine tenant selection decisions, where landlords evaluate hypothetical applicants based on their partisan affiliation and moral behavior. Study 1 employs a conjoint experiment with 2,100 participants, revealing a polarized pattern in tenant preferences. Evaluations are driven by partisan alignment but also moderated by information about moral norm-violating or prosocial behaviors. Study 2, a factorial experiment with 2,225 participants, isolates key moral behaviors to assess their differential impacts on in-partisan and out-partisan evaluations. Results show that moral norm violations, such as stealing, have a stronger negative impact on in-partisan evaluations, potentially due to perceived betrayals of shared values. Conversely, prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering, more substantially improve out-partisan evaluations, challenging stereotypes and reducing negative biases. Our findings suggest that moral considerations can mitigate partisan biases in interpersonal evaluations under certain conditions. While moral violations reinforce the robustness of partisan identities, self-interest and perceived threats can diminish in-group favoritism. Prosocial behaviors, on the other hand, demonstrate the potential to reduce animosity toward out-groups, highlighting the dual role of morality in bridging divides in politically polarized societies. This study contributes to the literature on affective polarization by demonstrating that moral behavior interacts with partisan biases in nuanced ways, with implications for understanding the boundaries of partisan animosity in non-political contexts. By focusing on the Czech Republic—a post-communist society characterized by high affective polarization but unstable partisan systems—our findings provide new insights into the role of morality in interpersonal decision-making in diverse political settings.