Measures - Overview
Measure · API Affective Polarization Index affective mass vertical Measure · Behavioral Games Behavioral Measure of Intergroup Polarization affective mass horizontal Measure · Coefficients of Agreement Coefficients of Agreement ideological issue Measure · Dispersion (Weighted) Party System Dispersion ideological elite Measure · Distance (Weighted) mean distance from the most-liked party affective mass vertical Measure · Other Polarization Measurements Other Polarization Measurements ideological issue affective elite horizontal mass vertical Measure · Party Dyads Party Dyads and In-Out-Party Differences ideological affective mass vertical Measure · Party-System Compactness Party-System Compactness ideological elite Measure · Party-System Extremism Party-System Extremism ideological elite Measure · Polarization Index CSES Polarization Index ideological elite mass Measure · Range Range Between Outer-Right and -Left Parties ideological elite Measure · SD Standard Deviation ideological elite mass Measure · Social Distance Scale Closest Acceptable Relationship with Outparty Voters affective mass horizontal Measure · Spread (Weighted) Spread of like-dislike scores affective mass vertical Measure · trait-based Trait-Based Affective Polarization affective mass horizontal Measure · Variance Weighted Variance ideological elite

Polarization measure · Behavioral Games

Behavioral Measure of Intergroup Polarization

Description

By using Behavioral Games, such as Blattner and Koenen (2023) or Westwood et al. (2018) polarization is measured by dictator and trust game, in which participants decide how to allocate a monetary endowment to another individual. The recipient is randomly assigned a political or social group affiliation, allowing researchers to compare participants’ behavior toward in-group versus out-group members.

Polarization is operationalized as systematic differences in allocation behavior depending on the recipient’s group identity. Lower transfers, reduced cooperation, or diminished trust toward out-group members relative to in-group members are interpreted as evidence of polarization, reflecting social distance, discrimination, or lack of trust across group lines.

By relying on incentivized choices rather than self-reported attitudes, this approach captures behavioral manifestations of polarization, revealing how group divisions translate into tangible differences in cooperation and resource allocation.

Operationalization

There are multiple variations of Behavioral Games.

In the simplest version, the ‘Dictator Game’, participants decide whether to allocate part of a given endowment to another person and, if so, how much. By experimentally varying information about the recipient (e.g., party identification), researchers can examine whether allocation decisions differ across recipient characteristics. Differences in the amount transferred are interpreted as an indicator of affective polarization.

The ‘Trust Game’ extends the concept: The sender first decides how much of an initial endowment to transfer to the receiver. The transferred amount is multiplied before reaching the receiver, who then decides how much, if any, to return to the sender. By manipulating information about the receiver (e.g., party identification), researchers can assess how recipient characteristics influence the sender’s trust and the receiver’s reciprocal behavior, thereby providing a behavioral measure of affective polarization.

Use cases

Publications that use this measure:

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