Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans’ support for partisan violence

Abstract

Significance Prominent events, such as the 2021 US Capitol attack, have brought politically motivated violence to the forefront of Americans’ minds. Yet, the causes of support for partisan violence remain poorly understood. Across four studies, we found evidence that exaggerated perceptions of rival partisans’ support for violence are a major cause of partisans’ own support for partisan violence. Further, correcting these false beliefs reduces partisans’ support for and willingness to engage in violence, especially among those with the largest misperceptions, and this effect endured for 1 mo. These findings suggest that a simple correction of partisans’ misperceptions could be a practical and scalable way to durably reduce Americans’ support for, and intentions to engage in, partisan violence.

The Subversion Dilemma: Why Voters Who Cherish Democracy Participate in Democratic Backsliding

“…Successfully manipulating perceptions in survey environments is challenging given the speed with which respondents take surveys, so we turn to an "ask-tell" design, which engages respondents by providing them with feedback. Scholars have successfully employed similar designs to shape perceptions in other studies (21,22,36,37). In the treatment and control groups, we ask participants the same seven questions that we use in Study 1 to measure beliefs about opposing partisans' willingness to break democratic norms.…”

Selection Neglect and Political Beliefs

“…Similar dynamics can lead to spirals of distrust, if, for example, all are excessively pessimistic about other parties willingness to uphold democratic principles, they themselves may be willing to take undemocratic actions (Mernyk et al, 2021).…”

“…A prominent example of this concerns partisan misperceptions. Partisans tend to hold incorrect beliefs about supporters of the rival party-in particular, they think that their political adversaries hold views that are more different from themselves (Chambers and Melnyk, 2006;Robinson et al, 1995;Levendusky and Malhotra, 2016), are willing to take extreme actions (Yudkin et al, 2019;Chambers and Melnyk, 2006;Mernyk et al, 2021;Lees and Cikara, 2020;Ruggeri et al, 2021), and attribute them with negative or stereotypical qualities (Moore-Berg et al, 2020;Ruggeri et al, 2021;Pasek et al, 2021;Ahler and Sood, 2018). Ahler and Sood (2018) provide compelling tests of the underlying mechanisms that result in partisan misperceptions.…”

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

“…By exaggerating the prototypical characteristics of out-group members in these ways, ideologues increase the perceived social distance between different groups and might stereotype, discredit or marginalize the out-group. Partisans might also represent their adversaries as more obstructionist 95 , more ideologically extreme 122 , 151 – 153 , more prejudiced against the in-group 55 , or more violent 154 than they actually are. Presumably, distorting images of the out-group as deviant, hostile, stubborn, extreme and unreasonable serves to justify treating the out-group unfavourably 55 , 89 , 95 , 155 .…”

“…By contrast, media coverage that is critical of polarization among political elites can reduce issue polarization among citizens, presumably because people do not want to be seen (by themselves or others) as extremists 122 , 158 – 160 . Many people, it seems, are amenable to having their misperceptions of the other side corrected, which lowers affective polarization 150 , 153 , 154 .…”