Position misperception
People may think their opponents’ views are more extreme than they actually are. This can make political disagreements seem larger than they are.
Working
model
We study how people understand the reasons behind their political opponents’ beliefs. We also examine how people evaluate those reasons, including whether their judgments change depending on the political views of the person giving them.
The premise
People disagree about political beliefs and about what counts as a good reason for holding them.
Studying these disagreements may help explain political hostility and show whether a better understanding of opponents’ reasons can reduce it.
Our working model
Metaperceptual ignorance
People can misunderstand what their political opponents believe, why they believe it, and what they consider a good reason. We study these misunderstandings alongside how political identity affects people’s judgments of reasons.
Reason distortion
People may misunderstand why their opponents hold a belief, overlooking the reasons those opponents give and assuming less sympathetic motives.
Credibility filtering
People may judge the same reason more negatively when they think it comes from a political opponent.
A possible pathway we are testing
Misperceptionof positions & reasons
→Reduced understandingof opponents’ perspectives
→Affective polarizationcontempt, distrust & exclusion
Planning phase
Studying political reasons across countries
We use four activities to study how people explain their political beliefs, judge others’ reasons, and predict their opponents’ judgments.
- A
Collect reasons
Ask people to explain why they hold particular views on political issues in their country.
- B
Rate reasons
Ask people from different political groups to rate the quality of the same reasons.
- C
Measure the gap
Ask people to predict how their political opponents will rate the reasons. Compare those predictions with their opponents’ actual ratings.
- D
Test affiliation labels
Test whether ratings change when we hide the person’s political affiliation, show it accurately, or label the person as belonging to the opposing political group.
Conceptual foundations
Papers that inform our questions, methods, and working model.
Explore the reading guide