Social identity processes predicting post-election 2020 ideological extremism

The 2020 National Election seemed to play a role in the rise of political extremism in the United States. The present study investigates whether the interaction between changes in political identification and support for political leaders (Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden) from pre- to post-election was associated with ideological extremism among Republicans and Democrats. We collected responses using Amazon Mechanical Turk from U.S. residents (N = 241) before and after the 2020 U.S. National Election. Analyses showed a significant interaction predicting post-election ideological extremism between increased political identification and leader support for Republicans: B = .22, SE = .10, F(1, 232) = 12.27, p = .001. We did not find a significant interaction effect between increased political identification and leader support for Democrats: B = .01, F(1, 232) = .03, p = .862. According to simple slope tests, among Republicans with increased support for their leader in the election Donald Trump, political identification and post-election ideological extremism were positively associated. Among Republicans with less support for Donald Trump and Democrats at any level of change in support for Joe Biden, the association between political identification and post-election ideological extremism was nonsignificant.