Agreement, Acceptability, and the Willingness to Sanction Political Speech

Abstract

Although it is widely understood that public opinion is shaped through dynamic social processes, there are many social aspects of this process that existing studies have not been fully explored. In this study, I consider the role of social norms in shaping public opinion; namely, social sanctioning. What makes people willing to sanction or “call out” those who express an opinion that is outside of the acceptable bounds? I develop some baseline expectations about the correlates of willingness to sanction those who express certain opinions and I test them using a novel internet survey conducted in South Korea. I find that agreement and acceptability both predict willingness to sanction political speech. I discuss the implications of these findings and make suggestions for future research.