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Although the concept of party identity is central to our understanding of political
behavior in the U.S., only recently and to a limited degree has it been examined with instruments
from the field of social psychology. This is surprising, given that the concept is claimed in the
most prominent political science to be social psychological in nature (Campbell, Converse,
Miller, and Stokes 1960; Green, Palmquist, and Schickler 2002). While the application of social
psychological theory to the political world presents challenges (Huddy 2001), the project is a
worthy one. My purposes in this study are twofold. First, I aim to extend our understanding of
political partisans by testing a measure of social identity that comes from the next generation of
social-psychological studies based in social identity theory (Cameron 2004). It identifies three
dimensions of identity, specifies cognitive and affective aspects, and allows a closer look at what
explains attitudes and behavior. Second, I want to examine the potential for Republican and
Democratic identities to function differently.
I first review the existing work and characterize the current understanding of party
identification from four key vantage points. Then, I look more closely at the studies analyzing
the psychology of party attachments. I present Cameron’s (2004) three-factor model as
especially useful and identify its connection with and extension of prior work. Using a 2007
survey of registered voters in California, I then assess the degree to which it functions in regard
to politics, and explore whether Republicans and Democrats display different types of identity. I
find that the new measures capture three dimension of identity that are prevalent among both
Republicans and Democrats, and that relate strongly to the traditional measure of partisan
strength. The new measures identify an influence of identity that occurs (a) primarily from
people’s affective dispositions and, and (b) more so for Republicans than Democrats. I conclude
with comments on what the findings imply for the study and the practice of partisan politics.
The Current Understanding of Party Identification in the U.S.
In recent years, four notable advances have occurred in the scholarship on the
psychological nature of party identification. The first is a marked by a body of new empirical
evidence supporting the long-held construct of party identification originating in the American
Voter. Green, Palmquist, and Schickler (2002) retain the idea that party identities are based in
Convention