Lifestyle polarization on a college campus: Do liberals and conservatives behave differently in everyday life?

Abstract

Socializing, moving, working, and leisure form the foundation of human experience. We examined whether these foundational, ostensibly nonpolitical behaviors are nevertheless bifurcated along political fault lines, revealing "lifestyle polarization." Study 1 quantified the association between political identity and 61 social, movement, work, and leisure behaviors collected from smartphone sensors and logs (i.e., GPS, microphone, calls, texs, unlocks, activity recognition) and ecological momentary assessments (i.e., querying activity level, activity type, interaction partners, locations) at multiple temporal levels (i.e., daily, mornings, afternoon, evenings, nights, weekends, weekdays) in a sample of up to 1,229 students on a college campus. We found that liberals and conservatives behave differently in everyday life; the behavioral differences were small but robust, not accounted for by other plausible factors (e.g., demographics), and most pronounced in the leisure domain. Study 2 showed that the behavioral differences between liberals and conservatives were not accurately discerned by other students, who overestimated the extent of lifestyle polarization present on their campus. Together, these studies suggest that political identity has penetrated some of the most foundational aspects of everyday life, but not to the degree that people think. We discuss how communities may feel divided not only because of deep ideological disagreements across partisan lines but also because such disagreements are accompanied by distinct lifestyles-both real and (mis)perceived-that may prevent liberals and conservatives from engaging in cross-partisan contact and developing mutual understanding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).