Naïve Realism and Affirmative Action: Adversaries are More Similar Than They Think

two warring camps, each of which stakes a mutually exclusive claim to moral virtue. Defenders of affirmative action cast themselves as the champions of racial justice and the keepers of Dr. King’s dream. Opponents of affirmative action cast themselves as champions of the true color-blind intent of cherished American values.” (Bobo, 1998; p. 985) One characteristic of the debate over affirmative action in university settings is the shared perception of a deep and unbridgeable chasm. As sociologist Lawrence Bobo (1998) observed, proponents of affirmative action tend to see those who oppose the policy as conservative reactionaries who want to set back the tide of racial progress and limit minority access to education. Opponents of affirmative action tend to see those who support the policy as liberals who want to compromise standards and create an unfair system that promotes minority interests over the interests of fairness. Given such intergroup perceptions, it is not surprising that the affirmative action debate is often marked by acrimony and mutual distrust. Although differences of opinion between the proponents and opponents of affirmative action no doubt reflect some important differences in political priorities and ideology, the research to be reported in this article explores the hypothesis that in this debate, as in many other contentious political debates, the differences in question may be smaller and less predictable, and the amount of common ground may be greater, than the adversaries recognize. This hypothesis derives from a more general account of naïve realism offered by Ross and Ward (1996; see also Griffin & Ross, 1991; Ichheiser, 1949; Pronin, Puccio, & Ross, 2002) and is directly prompted by related research on false polarization (Robinson, Keltner, Ward, & Ross, 1995; Keltner & Robinson, 1997). Theoretical accounts of naïve realism describe how people reconcile their own perspective of the world with how they see the perspective of others. The general contention is BASIC AND APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 25(4), 275–289 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.