Need for Chaos and Dehumanization are Robustly Associated with Support for Partisan Violence, While Political Measures are Not

Recent, high-profile acts of partisan violence have stimulated interest among academics and the public in the etiology of support for such violence. Here, we report the results of a study that measures support for partisan violence with both abstract items (e.g., support for general partisan violence) and those focused on more specific acts (e.g., support for a partisan motivated shooting). We additionally examine intra-individual and intergroup correlates of support for partisan violence. Across three data collections (total N = 2003) and using seven unique operationalizations of support for partisan violence, we find the most consistent and typically largest relationships with individuals’ reported “need for chaos” (e.g., agreement with statements like: “Sometimes I just feel like destroying beautiful things”) and the extent to which they dehumanize members of the opposing party. System justification and social dominance orientation also consistently relate to support for partisan violence. These results suggest a common set of correlates for abstract and specific violence that reflect internal psychological (intra-individual) tendencies and intergroup evaluations. It also seems that partisan violence resembles other types of intergroup violence, as the relevant variables are not unique to the political domain.