People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of the outgroup, but also by how they think the outgroup perceives the ingroup (i.e., meta-perceptions). Here, we examine the prevalence, accuracy, and consequences of meta-perceptions among American political partisans. Using a representative sample (n= 1,056) and a longitudinal convenience sample (n= 2,707), we find that Democrats and Republicans equally dislike and dehumanize each other but think that the levels of prejudice and dehumanization held by the outgroup party are approximately twice as strong as actually reported by a representative sample of Democrats and Republicans. Overestimations of negative meta-perceptions were consistent across samples over time and between demographic subgroups but were modulated by political ideology: More strongly liberal Democrats and more strongly conservative Republicans were particularly prone to exaggerate meta-perceptions. Finally, we show that meta-prejudice and meta-dehumanization are independently associated with the desire for social distance from members of the outgroup party and support for policies that harm the country and flout democratic norms to favor the ingroup political party. This research demonstrates that partisan meta-perceptions are subject to a strong negativity bias with Democrats and Republicans agreeing that the shadow of partisanship is much larger than it actually is, which fosters mutual intergroup hostility.

In societies involved in an intractable conflict, there are strong socio-psychological barriers that contribute to the continuation and intractability of the conflict. Based on a unique field study conducted in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we offer a new avenue to overcome these barriers by exposing participants to a long-term paradoxical intervention campaign expressing extreme ideas that are congruent with the shared ethos of conflict. Results show that the intervention, although counterintuitive, led participants to express more conciliatory attitudes regarding the conflict, particularly among participants with center and right political orientation. Most importantly, the intervention even influenced participants' actual voting patterns in the 2013 Israeli general elections: Participants who were exposed to the paradoxical intervention, which took place in proximity to the general elections, reported that they tended to vote more for dovish parties, which advocate a peaceful resolution to the conflict. These effects were long lasting, as the participants in the intervention condition expressed more conciliatory attitudes when they were reassessed 1 y after the intervention. Based on these results, we propose a new layer to the general theory of persuasion based on the concept of paradoxical thinking.attitude change | psychological intervention I n recent years, the study of intractable conflicts has gained prominence within the social sciences (1, 2). This type of conflict is very difficult to resolve peacefully because it is fueled by socio-psychological barriers that play a key role in this impasse (3, 4). One major implication of these barriers is the tendency to freeze on conflict supporting societal beliefs and attitudes, and thus preserve hostility between the adversaries (5, 6). [Societal beliefs are defined as shared cognitions by society members that address themes and issues that society members are particularly occupied with, and which contribute to their sense of uniqueness (7).]Freezing is characterized by rigidity and close-mindedness, such that information incongruent with the reigning cognitiveemotional structure is likely to be ignored, rejected, misinterpreted, or forgotten, whereas congruent information is accepted as valid (8, 9; see also ref. 10). In fact, cognitive freezing encourages tunnel vision with respect to the conflict and the means to resolve it. Thus, one major challenge for scholars and peace activists is to overcome these deeply rooted socio-psychological barriers by unfreezing the held conflict supporting collective narratives. A successful unfreezing process should increase the individual's openness to previously contradictory views regarding the conflict, the adversary, and the in-group (5). With this challenge, a growing body of research has attempted to identify methods of intervention that can unfreeze deeply rooted conflict-supporting narratives among groups in conflict (11-16).In principle, most current interventions directly provide information th...

Conflict-resolution interventions based on the paradoxical thinking principles, that is, expressing amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd ideas that are congruent with the held conflict-supporting societal beliefs, have been shown to be an effective avenue of intervention, especially among individuals who are adamant in their views. However, the question as to why these interventions have been effective has remained unanswered. In the present research, we have examined possible underlying psychological mechanisms, focusing on identity threat, surprise, and general disagreement. In a small-scale lab study and a large-scale longitudinal study, we compared paradoxical thinking interventions with traditional interventions based on providing inconsistent information. The paradoxical thinking interventions led rightists to show more unfreezing of held conflict-supporting beliefs and openness to alternative information, whereas the inconsistency-based interventions tended to be more effective with the centrist participants. Both studies provide evidence that the effects were driven by identity threat, surprise, and lower levels of disagreement.