October 29, 2024
4 min read
People Overestimate Political Opponents’ Immorality
To heal political division, start with common moral ground, a study suggests
How would you describe a member of the opposite political party? Maybe you find them “annoying” or even “stupid.” Or you might even call them “bigoted” or “immoral.” Americans are deeply politically divided, and harsh language is not uncommon. Large majorities of Republicans and Democrats say they can’t agree on basic facts, and both parties report hating political opponents more than they love political allies. Although we lack reliable polling data from the 1800s, some scholars suggest we haven’t been this polarized since the Civil War.
The roots of these divides are varied and include structural features of the U.S., such as the two-party system that pits “us” against “them,” and social media algorithms that showcase the most outrage-inducing content from each side. This political environment shapes our beliefs about the other side, which can further drive division. Yet research finds that these notions are often wrong. Democrats surveyed in 2015, for example, wrongly believed that 38 percent of Republicans made more than $250,000 per year (the real number was 2.2 percent), and Republicans in that same study wrongly thought that 32 percent of Democrats were gay, lesbian or bisexual (the real number was 6.3 percent). We also have misconceptions about how much our opponents hate us, wildly exaggerating the other side’s animosity.
A common misconception is that they—unlike us—lack genuine moral values. We are caring people, but they are trying to burn everything down. We are fighting for goodness; they are working for evil. In recent research, we have found these misperceptions about morality go deep. People think many in the opposing political party approve of obvious moral wrongs.
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In a national survey, we asked more than 600 participants who identified as either Democrats or Republicans to appraise six basic moral transgressions: committing wrongful imprisonment, tax fraud, embezzlement or animal abuse, watching child pornography and cheating on a spouse. Almost everyone said they did not approve of these acts. (Depending on the specific behavior, a small number of participants—less than 5 percent—said they did approve.)
There was no notable difference between the two parties. This aligns with past research. In fact, scientists who study moral psychology find that most people actually share a “moral sensitivity.” That is, even though people hold varying ideas about specific actions and issues, their core concern in moral dilemmas ultimately boils down to protecting vulnerable parties from harm.
We then asked participants to estimate how likely their political opponents would be to approve of these actions. Our results showed that, on average, Democrats and Republicans thought about 23 percent of their political opponents would approve of basic moral wrongs—despite the fact that the actual percentage was near zero for both parties.
That pattern persisted even when we tried a variation on our survey with additional participants, to minimize the possibility of purposeful exaggeration. But even when we tried paying participants to be accurate—a common strategy in this kind of research—people still overestimated the fraction of political opponents who approved of basic moral wrongs.
Further studies demonstrated that these distorted perceptions of the other side’s basic morality also drove division. For example, the more immoral people believed their political opponents to be, the more likely they were to agree with language that dehumanized them, such as statements that suggested the other party’s members were “lacking in self-restraint, like an animal.” People also rejected the idea of talking with or even trying to understand someone from the opposing party, possibly because of their purported immorality.
These distorted perceptions also appear in public conversations about politics. When we examined every post from 5,806 users on X(formerly Twitter)from 2013 to 2021 (about 5.8 million posts), we found that liberals and conservatives were more likely to use words such as “rapist,” “thief,” “pedophile,” “sociopath” and “murderer” when commenting on each other than when commenting on nonpolitical topics. In 2013 people were not especially likely to use these words when they talked about political opponents. In fact, they applied these terms just as often when posting about celebrities. Around the mid-2010s, however, this hostile language spiked sharply in posts about political opponents and has remained high ever since.
Can we stop people from doing this? One simple solution could be reminding each other of shared moral values.
For example, in our recent research, we found that providing concrete information that highlights someone’s basic moral values can increase cooperation across the aisle. In one study, learning that a conversation partner with oppositing political views shared a participant’s condemnation of wrongs, such as tax fraud or animal abuse, increased the odds that these partners would interact, compared with people who didn’t receive this information.
Although this solution clearly cannot resolve all of our political divisions, it can still have powerful effects. Sometimes we need a reminder that they are like us. We may disagree on many issues, but underneath those disagreements lies a common moral sense: we all care deeply about protecting our friends, family and communities from harm. Talking about our core principles and values—many of which we have in common—before talking about issues that can easily turn contentious can help those conversations go better.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about for Mind Matters? Please send suggestions to Scientific American’s Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas at dyuhas@sciam.com.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
