Affective partisan polarization and moral dilemmas during the COVID-19 pandemic∗ Stoetzer, L. F.1, Munzert, S.2, Lowe, W.2, C¸alı, B. 2, Gohdes, A.2, Helbling, M.3, Maxwell, R.4, and Traunmueller, R.3 1Humboldt University of Berlin 2Hertie School 3University of Mannheim 4University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill May 6, 2021 Recent scholarship on affective polarization documents partisan animosity that extends to people's everyday lives. But does partisan dislike go so far as to deny fundamental rights to political opponents? We study this ques- tion through a moral dilemma that gained worldwide notoriety during the COVID-19 pandemic: triage decisions on the allocation of intensive medical care. Using a conjoint experiment in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United States, we study the influence of patients' partisanship in addi- tion to commonly discussed factors determining access to intensive medical care. We find that while participants' choices are consistent with a utili- tarian heuristic, revealed partisanship is a robust decision criterion across most countries. Supporters of left or right political camps are more likely to withhold support from partisan opponents, with right-party supporters being more strongly penalized. Our findings offer new comparative evidence on affective polarization in non-political contexts. ∗Corresponding auther Lukas F. Stoetzer, E-Mail:
[email protected]. This research was generously funded by a grant from the Hertie School Faculty Activity Fund. We thank partipants of the WZB colloqium "Sociological Perspectives on the Corona Crisis" for valuable feedback on the paper. We thank Johannes Latmann for excellent research assistance.