Americans’ sports-oriented psychology is deeply ingrained in its politics, according to a study by the University of Kansas, which characterizes average Democratic and Republican voters as acting “like fans in sports rivalries instead of making political choices based on issues.”

Patrick Miller, University of Kansas assistant professor of political science, and Pamela Johnston Conover, a distinguished professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, are co-authors of the study “Red and Blue States of Mind: Partisan Hostility and Voting in the United States,” published this month in the journal Political Research Quarterly.

Analyzing attitudes of voters nationwide from 2010 survey data, the study concluded that many average voters with strong party affiliations – both Democrats and Republicans – care more about their parties winning elections than about ideology or issues. The study found in fact that loyalty to the party itself was the source of partisan rivalry and incivility, not a fundamental disagreement over issues.

Specifically, 41 percent of partisans said that simply winning elections is more important than policy or ideology, while 35 percent valued policy more than winning. Only 24 percent valued both equally or expressed no opinion.

The research confirms observation that a labels-based political culture is as simplistic as it appears. Those people who say they vote for the candidate, not the party, are the exception, not the norm.

“What is the consequence of today’s polarized politics? What’s motivating partisans to vote in this climate?” Miller asked. “For too many of them, it’s not high-minded, good-government, issue-based goals. It’s, ‘I hate the other party. I’m going to go out, and we’re going to beat them.’ That’s troubling.”

What’s more disturbing is that 38 percent of partisans said their parties should use any tactics necessary to “win elections and issue debates,” including voter suppression, stealing or cheating in elections, physical violence and threats against the other party, lying, personal attacks on opponents, not allowing the other party to speak and using the filibuster to gridlock Congress. Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to hold such extreme viewpoints.

KU reports that Miller’s study is related to other research showing that Americans tend to insulate themselves within their parties and consume only media content that reinforces their conservative or liberal views. That narrow exposure to ideas intensifies hostility between the parties.

“We’re not thinking about politics in the way that most Founders wanted, which is to think about issues, be open to compromise and not be attached to parties. We’re looking at politics through a simplistic partisan view in which we think our side is good and their side is bad,” Miller said.

He blames the fierce partisanship in Congress, saying “they’re partly giving us what we want ... “We enable dysfunction in Washington, whether we realize it or not.”

That suggests that changing the political environment is on us, the voters, not the politicians, though Miller said that we “need brave politicians of both parties to convince the average partisan that just because you may disagree with those other people, that doesn’t mean the other side is evil and that you’re not necessarily morally superior.

“You’re no more or less American than they are. And maybe, you don’t have to hate each other to disagree. But that’s a very unpalatable argument to a lot of average people.”