The "Eagles" vs. The "Rattlers" and What They Tell Us About The Democrats vs. The Republicans

Introduction

Humans are tribal creatures. When we think about ourselves this way, many phenomena we see in the political environment now become a lot easier to explain. When we know the causal mechanisms that drive us to behave the way we do, we can often rationally and reasonably counter the behaviors that allow us to fall into these psychological traps. In this post, I will explain two conceptual frameworks from the psychology literature. The first is an older and well-established framework called Social Identity Theory (SIT). The second is called Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), and it has become very popular in the social sciences in the last few decades.

Both of these theories are well-documented and apply to how partisanship (the social identity of one's political party) has manifested in today's politics. Moreover, both are rooted in human nature, and they are the way human psychology is wired. This fact makes it super-easy for people to fall into the "us vs. them" trap, which makes civil discourse and debate virtually impossible. And to make matters even worse, elites can capitalize on these traits and mobilize supporters by tapping into these psychological triggers. Once the "us vs. them" mentality is triggered and the concept of affective partisanship is activated, people are willing to support non-democratic means to achieve political outcomes (i.e., political violence). When we think about restoring democracy and a road forward, we have to confront how politics divides and how we can reverse the animosity while still holding different policy opinions that are hashed out in civil electoral politics and debate. But before we look at solutions, let's review the problem.

Social Identity Theory

In 1961, Muzafer Sherif and his coauthors published their now-famous Robbers Cave Experiment. This book became a cornerstone in what we know about intergroup conflict. The experiment was simple. The scholars separated two groups of 11 and 12-year-old boys, evenly matched on race, socioeconomic background, and other characteristics, into two groups, the boys named the "Eagles" and the "Rattlers," and encouraged them to bond independently. The groups quickly formed, rallied around the names and flags they chose for themselves, and established a group identity and a sense of belonging. They even decided on some rules of behavior for the group members. 

The researchers then brought the groups together and told them they would compete in contests —like tug-of-war, baseball, and a treasure hunt—with scarce rewards for the winners (e.g., a trophy, medals, knives). Very quickly, hostility escalated. Name-calling began (e.g., "sneaky bastards" and "cheaters"), and soon after came acts of sabotage (e.g., raiding each other's cabins, burning flags, stealing possessions). The boys refused to eat together or associate with the other group. Sherif and colleagues argued that competition over limited resources—even artificial ones—could quickly produce in-group favoritism and out-group hostility. Things were pretty tense for a while. For example, during shared meals, food fights broke out—boys from one group would throw mashed potatoes and other food items at the other table. In another case, the Rattlers stole personal belongings from the Eagles. They vandalized their cabin, breaking up furniture and trashing the room. One of the earliest and most symbolic acts of hostility came when the Rattlers raided the Eagles' cabin, tore down their flag, and burned it. This was a direct attack on the Eagles' group identity. In retaliation, the Eagles plotted revenge, escalating the hostility cycle. One especially tense moment came when prizes were awarded for winning competitions. Each member of the winning group received a penknife. Fearing these might be used as weapons, the researchers closely monitored behavior, and tensions spiked. Threats of physical violence were overheard, and scuffles broke out. At one point, the Eagles made a sign with hostile slogans and posted it near the Rattlers' cabin, which was seen as an open challenge. The Rattlers responded by stockpiling rocks to prepare for a fight, which the researchers had to defuse before it became violent. These actions weren't just juvenile mischief—they represented the psychological power of group identity, especially when combined with perceived threats and competition. Sherif and his team were alarmed at how quickly and deeply hostility took root, even among boys with no personal reason to dislike one another.

Think about this for a minute. Random boys were brought together to bond with each other and set up camp. Muzafer Sherif and his team carefully matched the boys in the experiment on key demographic and psychological variables (i.e., they were all white, middle-class, protestant boys between the ages of 11 and 12 and screened to be "well-adjusted.) to control for external factors and isolate the effects of group formation and competition. The only source of contention was that they were artificially grouped and bonded before meeting each other for competitive camp games! This setup is the same dynamic in most reality TV shows based on teams and competition. Sherif was able to create conflict simply from social organization. The researchers called this Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT). They demonstrated how intergroup conflict can arise from mere group categorization and competition over limited resources.

In the final phase of the experiment, to reduce the tension, the researchers first tried non-competitive contact, like movie nights and shared meals, but this failed. Then, they introduced superordinate goals—tasks that required both groups to cooperate, such as fixing a broken water supply or pulling a truck stuck in mud. Through repeated collaboration on these tasks, intergroup hostility began to decline. Eventually, the boys started forming friendships across group lines. This showed how cooperation could be restored even after the groups were previously quite hostile. However, RCT was only the beginning of this line of research. Eventually, scholars found that competition over scarce resources wasn't even necessary to induce hostility and animosity. 

Social Identity Theory (SIT), developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, showed that material resources or actual conflict aren't necessary for group bias to emerge. The key piece of evidence comes from Tajfel's minimal group experiments in the 1970s. In these studies, participants were randomly assigned to groups based on trivial criteria, such as a preference for paintings by Klee or Kandinsky. Despite the complete absence of resource conflict or meaningful group differences, participants consistently favored their group (the in-group) over others (the out-group) when distributing rewards or making judgments. These experiments showed that mere categorization into a group was enough to produce in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination. There is a long history of social science research in this vein. It all points to the same conclusion: humans are very susceptible to us vs. them social constructs, and the hostility becomes even greater when there are scarce resources to fight over. Politics is social identity theory on steroids! The stakes are high; we form our groups through political socialization very early in life, and then we participate in nationwide competitive elections where there can only be one winner. This is a recipe for a large-scale Robbers Cave experiment! Now, let's move on to another social psychology framework that might have even greater ramifications for political competition.

Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)

If you want a great book to read and have not already devoured the text, I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. This book is the culmination of his research program on moral foundations. Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) proposes that human moral reasoning is based on a set of evolved psychological systems—moral foundations—that guide our sense of right and wrong. He develops six of these foundations and argues that they are like "taste buds" in the sense that just like how different taste buds are tuned to detect different flavors (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami), people's moral intuitions are "tuned" to different moral foundations. His foundations are (1) Care/Harm, (2) Fairness/Cheating, (3) Loyalty/Betrayal, (4) Authority/Subversion, (5) Sanctity/Degradation, and (6) Liberty/Oppression. In this framework, political ideologies reflect different emphases on these foundations. For example, liberals prioritize Care and Fairness almost exclusively.

In contrast, conservatives draw on broader foundations, placing additional value on Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. This framework helps explain why political debates often feel like moral battles—people are speaking different "moral languages." In politics, MFT explains policy preferences and partisan identity, culture wars, and why people may struggle to understand or respect the other side's views, because they are anchored in different moral intuitions, not just different facts or logic.

Haidt argues that conservatives have an advantage in this framework. According to Moral Foundations Theory, liberals emphasize only two or three foundations—Care/Harm and Fairness/Cheating (sometimes Liberty/Oppression). These relate to individual well-being, justice, and protecting the vulnerable. Conservatives, by contrast, value all six foundations more evenly. Because conservatives appeal to these additional foundations, they can tap into moral concerns that liberals may ignore—like national pride, religious values, or disgust at cultural decline. This means conservative messaging can resonate more broadly, especially with voters who don't think in strictly individualistic or secular terms. Even conservatives can differ on their resonance with the foundations, as libertarians tend to value the Liberty/Oppression foundation more than other conservatives, often at the expense of the other foundations. You can take the test here and check out more about his research here. 

The most interesting part about MFT is that Haidt and others argue that we are evolutionarily wired to react to these foundations. Haidt argues that human morality evolved not just to help individuals survive but to help groups survive (a very controversial claim for evolutionary biologists). Drawing on Darwin, he suggests that natural selection operated at both the individual and group levels—groups that developed strong moral systems (like norms around fairness, loyalty, and punishment of cheaters) cooperated more effectively and outcompeted others. And because morality is inherent, we react to moral frames predictably and unconsciously. He uses the metaphor of the rider and the elephant. The key idea is that the elephant usually leads—our moral judgments come quickly and emotionally. The rider follows behind, offering post hoc justifications and rationalizations for decisions we've already made. In other words, reason is often a servant of intuition, not its master. We think we are making a logical and rational decision to support or oppose something. Still, in reality, we justify our visceral and emotional gut reaction to a moral frame.

An Application to Politics

Social Identity Theory and Moral Foundations Theory tell us something important about politics. First, we are predisposed to form groups, make those groups a part of our social identity, and then engage in us vs. them behavior with outgroups. In their book The American Voter, Campbell and colleagues describe party identification as a deep-seated psychological attachment that functions like a social identity. The authors argue that most voters don't approach politics as rational calculators weighing issues or candidate traits. Instead, they have long-term loyalty to a political party, often inherited from family and reinforced over time through political socialization. This party ID shapes how people interpret news, policies, and political events, similar to how a sports fan sees a game through the lens of their favorite team. 

In her book, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018), Liliana Mason argues that American partisanship has evolved into a deeply affective, emotional, and identity-based attachment, not just a reflection of ideology or policy preferences. Our party identity has become increasingly "aligned" with other social identities, such as race, religion, geography, and cultural attitudes. As a result, political parties are not just coalitions of ideas but clusters of identities. This alignment intensifies "affective polarization," which means that partisans increasingly dislike and distrust opposing party members, even if they don't differ much on specific issues. This leads to "social sorting"—people choosing friends, spouses, churches, and neighborhoods that match their partisan identity. In turn, politics becomes less about policies and more about group loyalty, rivalry, and moral judgment. In Mason's words, Americans are "less cross-pressured, more sorted, and more hostile." Affective polarization is terrible for democracy! 

Rather than debate, discuss, and even argue about ideas and policies, we start to dehumanize members of the opposing party. Everything becomes about group conflict and identity warfare. People are willing to undermine democratic norms and tolerate non-democratic behavior to accomplish political and electoral goals. Compromise becomes a thing of the past. Politics becomes fused with identity—who you are, who you love, where you live, and what you believe. Divides deepen across race, religion, culture, and geography, turning disagreement into mutual disgust and making everyday life more politically charged. Studies show that higher levels of affective polarization are linked to a greater tolerance for political violence, especially when people believe the opposing party poses an existential threat. Again, this is the Robbers Cave experiment on a national stage.  

This kind of animosity-laden politics did not happen overnight. Many institutional and historical causes have led the American political parties to become more ideological and homogenous. The parties became more ideologically homogeneous starting in the mid-20th century, mainly due to the realignment of Southern white conservatives. After the Civil Rights Movement and the Democratic Party's embrace of racial liberalism, many conservative Southerners—who had long been Democrats—began shifting to the Republican Party. At the same time, liberal Northerners consolidated within the Democratic Party. This process, known as ideological sorting, made both parties more internally consistent and more distinct from each other, fueling polarization by turning partisan conflict into a battle between clearly opposed worldviews rather than broad coalitions. However, with more polarized elites, eventually comes a more polarized public. And when groups become more homogenous, as Mason argues via sorting, the "us vs. them" mentality becomes more powerful. There are no longer coalitions of opposing groups working with each other to achieve a common goal (i.e., the Rattlers and Eagles working together to fix a broken water line or the Southern Conservative Democrats and Northern Liberal Democrats working together to pass bills in the name of the Democratic party). 

Moreover, today, we don't see ideological sorting where people choose parties based on their political preferences. Instead, we see party-driven sorting where people choose political preferences based on their party identity! Party-driven sorting is why the Republican Party, which used to be the party of free trade, has suddenly become pro-tariff. President Trump and MAGA have activated group identities and changed policy stances. Now, where do moral foundations fall into this? 

Social Identity, Moral Foundations, and Elite Cues

We know SIT has found its way into politics. Suppose Haidt is correct that our moral foundations are hard-wired into us, and our receptivity to moral foundations is subconscious and evolutionary. In that case, this will make the connection between us vs. them animosity even more powerful. In a polarized environment, people don't engage in reasoned debate to seek truth—they rely on moral intuitions that align with their group identity (the elephant) and then use reason (the rider) to justify what they already feel. When party identity becomes fused with moral identity, political opponents are no longer just wrong—they are morally bad. This leads to demonization, outrage, and a refusal to compromise. Giving ground feels like violating your core moral values or betraying your tribe. Moral psychology makes polarization self-reinforcing—the more we moralize politics, the harder it becomes to work across lines of difference. Now for the worst part. 

Elites can take advantage of these psychological mechanisms. In today's political environment and social media echo chamber, people are bombarded with messages from their in-group. In political science, we call these messages elite cues. Elite cues refer to the messages provided by political elites (e.g., politicians, media figures, influencers, interest groups, etc.) that help shape public opinion and guide individuals' political beliefs, especially when they may lack the time or knowledge to form their independent views. People often rely on trusted figures to help them make sense of complex political issues or decisions. In a previous post, we showed you that many Americans are not knowledgeable about politics, which is when they rely on trusted elite cues to make political judgments. Sometimes, this works out great. Imagine you are in the ballot booth in 2028, and you have researched both presidential candidates well. You know precisely which candidate you plan to vote for. But then, you look at the rest of the ballot and see all these names for down-ballot offices that you have never heard of before. Well, if you are a Republican, you can be pretty sure that the Republican candidates will come closer to your views than the Democrats and vice versa. This is an excellent use of a partisan cue. 

However, there are negative sides to this as well. We may fall into a trap when we unthinkingly follow our favorite trusted political elites without critically thinking about what they are arguing and then link our opinions to theirs. Worse yet, when elites use morally laden language or us vs. them frames, they play into our psychological and social identities. They activate our primal and tribal nature to fight for the in-group and reduce the power of the outgroup. They may even dehumanize the outgroup, leading us down paths that are the antithesis of civil dialogue and democratic debate. They may mobilize their followers to commit acts of political violence in the name of some moral frame like fairness, loyalty, and authority. Nicoletti and Delehanty, in their book chapter (Im)Morality in Political Discourse? The Effects of Moral Psychology in Politics, argue that morally framed elite cues produce the possibility for increased political conflict and polarization and potentially obstruct democratic discourse. They also show in several working papers that moral frames can induce moral reasoning over a wide range of issues, including those not traditionally considered moral. If elites can use moral frames to moralize an issue, they can bolster their mobilization efforts and induce political action. I believe this is exactly what we are seeing today. President Trump ran his entire campaign on these frames and this kind of rhetoric. Demonizing undocumented immigrants and blaming them for "stealing" scarce resources from Americans, playing into the morals of social conservatives, dehumanizing transgender people, arguing that due process must be sidestepped to accomplish these goals, and that anyone who opposes him is opposing American values. Trump has created an "us vs. them" political world. Liberals and Democrats are also not immune. They are currently coalescing around their social identities and filtering everything through their echo chambers. To stop the cycle, we have to step back, realize the psychological mechanisms at play, and then make a conscious effort to stop the division and bridge the divide. That is the road forward.

Concluding Remarks

So, how do we get back to civil discourse? The answer is not easy. In Bowling Alone (2000), Robert Putnam argued that American civic life has eroded over the past few decades, leading to declining levels of social capital—the networks, norms, and trust that enable coordination and cooperation. People spend less time in community groups, religious institutions, volunteer work, and social clubs. This matters because social capital fosters empathy and cross-cutting relationships (political scientists call them cross-cutting cleavages). When people interact in shared, apolitical spaces—like a PTA, church group, sports team, or neighborhood watch—they learn to trust people who are different from them. He identifies two types of social capital. Bonding social capital is connections within like-minded groups (which can intensify polarization). Bridging social capital is connections across lines of difference (which can reduce polarization). To rebuild civil discourse, Putnam would suggest we need to reinvest in bridging institutions—spaces where diverse people interact face-to-face and build a sense of common purpose. To do this, we need pre-political connections. 

Before discussing politics, candidates, policies, religion, etc., we must get to know each other! What do we have in common? One of the most potent ways to reduce polarization and restore civil discourse is to build relationships before we debate politics. We need to see each other as neighbors first, not enemies. When we engage with others in community projects, sports teams, churches, or even casual conversations, we create bridging ties stretching political and cultural divides, breaking down the social sorting that Mason points out. These connections foster empathy and trust, making dehumanizing those we disagree with harder. If we begin by learning each other's stories and finding common ground—whether it's parenting, work, or love for the same hometown—our political conversations become less about winning and more about understanding. This is easier said than done as people move deeper into their homogenous social enclaves. At scale, we need institutions, media platforms, and political leaders that encourage bridging, not just bonding. Programs like America in One Room have shown that when a diverse group of citizens is brought together with good information and structured dialogue, people become more open-minded, less polarized, and more willing to compromise. 

So, knowing the psychological mechanisms at play and how elites are using them to divide us, we must take a step back, restrain the elephant, and make the conscious decision to let the rider bridge our way to the road forward. 

References

Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books.

Kalmoe, Nathan P., and Lilliana Mason. 2022. Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mason, Lilliana. 2018. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nicoletti, N.P., Delehanty, W.K. (2017). (Im)Morality in Political Discourse?The Effects of Moral Psychology in Politics. In: Voyer, B., Tarantola, T. (eds) Moral Psychology. Springer.

Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Sherif, Muzafer, O. J. Harvey, B. Jack White, William R. Hood, and Carolyn W. Sherif. 1988. Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment. Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press.

Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel, 33–47. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.