The prime psychological suspects of toxic political polarization

Moore‐Berg, Samantha L.; Hameiri, Boaz; Bruneau, Emile

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.001

Cited by 53 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Negative and inaccurate second-order beliefs about how 'they' see 'us' (meta-perceptions) also play a central role in driving intergroup conflict and have been noted as a likely contributor to 'toxic' polarization [4]. For example, Democrats and Republicans with the most extreme ideological attitudes were the most likely to overestimate the levels of prejudice and dehumanization their respective out-party held towards them.…”

Section: (Ii) Second-order Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerns about political polarization and its negative effects on democracy and intergroup relations have increased among scholars, policy makers and the public alike over the past few years [1][2][3][4]. Yet despite this attention to polarization as a major contributor to modern political ills, a growing body of scientific work on 'false polarization' has simultaneously flourished, suggesting that the extent of polarization is largely a fiction of our minds [5][6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding and combating misperceived polarization

Lees

Cikara

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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By many accounts politics is becoming more polarized, yielding dire consequences for democracy and trust in government. Yet a growing body of research on so-called false polarization finds that perceptions of ‘what the other side believes’ are inaccurate—specifically, overly pessimistic—and that these inaccuracies exacerbate intergroup conflict. Through a review of existing work and a reanalysis of published data, we (i) develop a typology of the disparate phenomena that are labelled ‘polarization’, (ii) use that typology to distinguish actual from (mis)perceived polarization, and (iii) identify when misperceived polarization gives rise to actual polarization (e.g. extreme issue attitudes and prejudice). We further suggest that a specific psychological domain is ideal for developing corrective interventions: meta-perception , one's judgement of how they are perceived by others. We review evidence indicating that correcting meta-perception inaccuracies is effective at reducing intergroup conflict and discuss methods for precisely measuring meta-perception accuracy. We argue that the reputational nature of meta-perception provides a motivational mechanism by which individuals are sensitive to the truth, even when those truths pertain to the ‘other side’. We conclude by discussing how these insights can be integrated into existing research seeking to understand polarization and its negative consequences. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.

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Section: (Ii) Second-order Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding and combating misperceived polarization

Lees

Cikara

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…What might lead people to support a style of governance that goes beyond advocacy of partisan social issues to threaten the fabric of society? One possibility lies in the shadow of political polarization (Moore-Berg, Hameiri, & Bruneau, 2020). Recent polling data shows that nearly 70% of Democrats and Republicans believe that Americans are greatly divided on their most important values (Monmouth University, 2019), and both Democrats' and Republicans' levels of affective prejudice toward the other side are at a 40-year high (Iyengar, Lelkes, Levendusky, Malhotra, & Westwood, 2019;Iyengar, Sood & Lelkes, 2012).…”

Section: Significance Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exaggerated Meta-Perceptions Predict Intergroup Hostility Between American Political Partisans

Moore‐Berg¹,

Karlinsky²,

Hameiri³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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People’s actions towards 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 = 1056) and a longitudinal convenience sample (N = 2707), 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 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.

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“…What might lead people to support a style of governance that goes beyond advocacy of partisan social issues to threaten the fabric of society? One possibility lies in the shadow of political polarization (2). Recent polling data show that nearly 69% of Democrats and Republicans believe that Americans are greatly divided on their most important values (3), and both Democrats' and Republicans' levels of affective prejudice toward the other side are at a 40-y high (4,5).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exaggerated meta-perceptions predict intergroup hostility between American political partisans

Moore‐Berg

Ankori-Karlinsky

Hameiri

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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164

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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.

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The prime psychological suspects of toxic political polarization

Cited by 53 publications

References 42 publications

Understanding and combating misperceived polarization

Understanding and combating misperceived polarization

Exaggerated Meta-Perceptions Predict Intergroup Hostility Between American Political Partisans

Exaggerated meta-perceptions predict intergroup hostility between American political partisans

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