The Partisans we Imagine aren't the Ones we Meet. Why Partisanship Rarely Rules The Formation of Social Relationships

This article challenges dominant views that partisanship informs the formation of social relationships and that ordinary Republicans and Democrats loathe each other. Evidence for these claims generally comes from studies in which respondents reject fictitious out-partisans. However, in most encounters, partisanship is often invisible, or ambiguous, and few people care about it. Using an original survey module, we show that only 15 percent of respondents know the partisanship of a recently met acquaintance, and few consider it important. Selection experiments further show that preferences for co-workers, neighbors, and recreational partners are barely shaped by politics: when partisanship is invisible, people seldom seek it out. Only when presented with explicit information about partisanship -- which is rare in everyday life -- do partisan preferences emerge. These results temper concerns about widespread out-partisan avoidance, and reveal limitations of survey experiments. While partisan labels evoke hostility, actual out-partisans seldom do.