The Effects of Political Differences on Romantic Relationship Choices

The next speaker in this ICA 2024 conference session is Emily Van Duyn, whose interest is in the negotiation of the personal and political in romantic relationships in the United States. While this has been studied so far especially for persisting relationships (and might therefore be affected by survivor bias), the present study focusses on relationships that ended, whether for political or other reasons.

Personal identity is our view of ourselves, and informed by our personal values and beliefs; we negotiate this as we enter into relationships of all kinds. Especially in the US, this also strongly includes political identity, where Republican and Democrat identities seem to have hardened and may represent different understandings of democracy itself, and this is likely to affect romantic relationships as well.

How do people deal with this, then – how do they reconcile what they value in relationships with what they value in democracy? The study conducted 28 interviews with people who have terminated relationships due to political differences, in 2023 and 2024.

Key themes that emerged were tensions surrounding identity violation: intense reactions to a partner’s violation of what was seen as a shared identity between both partners (for instance as Black Americans); identity variation: strong differences in the application of shared personal identities in politics (e.g. differently strong opinions on LGBTIQ+ rights between two partners identifying as Christian); and identity validation: disappointment in the partner’s lack of political stance on an issue the individual identified as critical to their personal and political identity (e.g. a lack of support for LGBTIQ+ rights from the partner of an LGBTIQ+ person).

Other patterns include democratic and relationship validation, where people seek out partners that old similar values to theirs. Personal identity thus clearly shapes relationships and democratic values – but at the same time, not all identities are equal, and individuals identifying as part of distinct identity-based communities may be a lot more sensitive to differences from their partners than those who see themselves as part of generic mainstream groups.