This paper aims to identify the mechanisms underlying affective polarization (AP) by using an innovative interdisciplinary approach that combines Political Science and Cross-Cultural Psychology. Our goal is to understand how country-specific values influence the strength and the shape of negative emotions driving AP. We argue that the key to understanding how affective polarization works, why it occurs, and how it can be tackled, is to try to understand why it varies so dramatically from country to country. Two elements are central in the mechanism we propose: the variations of values and (hence) the variation of emotions. Following a cross-cultural psychology argument, we propose that cultural norms will regulate the emotions linked to AP (e.g. anger and fear), and that positive partisanship acts as a moderator.We test this mechanism by using an online survey (about 1000 respondents per country) fielded in twelve European Western Democracies
