Attitude networks as intergroup realities: Using  network-modelling to research attitude-identity  relationships in polarized political contexts

We apply a newly developed attitude network-modelling  technique (Response-Item Network, or ResIN) to study  attitude–identity relationships in the context of hot–button  issues that polarize the current US-American electorate.  The properties of the network–method allow us to simultaneously depict differences in the structural organization  of attitudes between groups and to explore the relevance  of organized attitude–systems for group identity management.Individuals based on a sample of US-American crowd  workers (N=396) and the representative 2020 ANES data  set (N=8280), we model an attitude network with two  conflictive partisan belief-systems. In the first step, we  demonstrate that the structural properties of the attitude network provide substantial information about latent partisan identities, thereby revealing which attitudes ‘belong’ to  specific groups. In a second step, we evaluate the potential  of attitudes to communicate identity-relevant information. Results from a vignette study suggest that people rely on  their mental representations of attitude-identity links to  structure and evaluate their social environment. By high-lighting functional interdependences between (macro level)  attitude structures and identity management, the presented  findings help advancing the understanding of attitude identity dynamics and socio-political cleavage