Clear Choices, Group-Centric Partisans

This chapter shows that there is a consistent and substantively strong relationship between the need for cognitive closure and indicators of group-centric partisanship. It includes measures on partisan strength and affective polarization among attentive supporters of two parties. It also examines the strong association between the need for cognitive closure (NFCC) and being a group-centric partisan, which are hypothesized to represent a relatively recent phenomenon. The chapter determines whether the relationship between psychological closure and group-centric partisanship has changed over time by assessing the extent to which NFCC predicts strength of partisanship in the present era compared to the past. It reports the results of an experiment conducted that manipulated the subjects' perceptions about the polarization of the two parties.