How do drivers react to partisan bumper stickers?

Finally, we also vary the demographics of the driver of this other car to determine if this effect is even stronger if the viewer is white, and the driver of the car with the sticker is Black. Displaying a bumper sticker brings the driver and the vehicle closer together, asserting the driver’s claim to share the positive symbolic attributes of the vehicle, and simultaneously making the vehicle less anonymous and more a projection of the driver’s image (Awcock, 2021; Bloch, 2000; Case, 1992; Dant, 2004; Koch and Porpora, 2007; Newhagen and Ancell, 1995). As we describe below, previous research suggests that three contextual factors will be particularly important: the way in which the vehicle is being driven, the partisanship of the sticker relative to the partisanship of the viewer, and the demographics of the driver relative to the demographics of the viewer.