4
values. And the constitutive preferences at the heart of such “identity talk” differ from non-
constitutive preferences: they are more important (Boninger, Krosnick and Berent, 1995) and
personally involving (Thomsen, Borgida and Lavine 1995), and the perspective that they
engender is less individualistic and fundamentally more group-oriented (Mouffe 1992; Taylor
1989). All of these effects make democratic discussion more difficult by highlighting the
importance of particular group interests at the expense of common interests, thereby making it
less likely that citizens will appeal to public reason in their discussion.
Identity politics can also erode the posture of open-mindedness that is essential to
democratic discussion. Constitutive preferences influence information processing, leading
citizens to engage in selective exposure to information and to invest more effort in processing
the information and thinking about the issue (Boninger, Krosnick and Berent 1995; Boninger et
al. 1995; Thomsen, Borgida and Lavine 1995). This, in turn, can make attitudes more extreme
and more closely linked to other important attitudes and values (Boninger et al. 1995),
rendering the preferences stronger and more stable. Such strongly held expressive identities
displace “dispassionate open-mindedness” by leading citizens to be less likely to listen to one
another, to understand and value the arguments being made, and in the end to be swayed by
them. So identity politics can make democratic discussion more difficult by emphasizing
group interests and inhibiting open-mindedness.
1
Moreover, the strong constitutive
preferences associated with identity politics promote intense emotional reactions (Abelson
1995). Indeed, the presence of strong emotions is perhaps the most obvious indication of
identity politics.
EMOTIONS AND DISCUSSION
Emotions are often seen as the enemy of deliberation: irrational impulses that have little
to do with the thoughtful reasoning about and evaluation of issues. But in recent years,
philosophers and psychologists alike have suggested a cognitive/evaluative view of emotions
that justifies their legitimacy in political debate and democratic decision-making (Nussbaum
2001; Ortony, Clore and Collins 1988). As Martha Nussbaum (2001, p. 4) explains: “this view
holds that emotions are appraisals or value judgments, which ascribe to things and persons
outside the person’s own control great importance for that person’s own flourishing”. So
emotions convey valuable information, both to the person experiencing the emotion and to
whatever audience might witness the emotional expression (Albarracín and Kumkale 2003).
1
I have painted a bleak picture of the possibility of democratic discussion on controversial issues
that evoke expressive identities. But identity politics can, under certain circumstances, have
positive effects on public life (see Gutmann 2003). Moreover, there are psychological strategies
for tempering the negative effects that expressive identities have on discussion, including:
“decategorization (Brewer and Miller 1984); the “common in-group identity model”(S.L. Gaertner
et al. 1993; Kessler and Mummendey 2001); and the “dual identity” model, (Eggins, Haslam and
Reynolds 2002).
Convention