Disagreeing About What We Disagree About

Two studies examined misperceptions of disagreement in partisan social conflicts, namely, in the debates over abortion (Study 1) and politics (Study 2). We observed that partisans tend to exaggerate differences of opinion with their adversaries. Further, we found that perceptions of disagreement were more pronounced for values that were central to the perceiver’s own ideology than for values that were central to the ideology of the perceiver’s adversaries. To the extent that partisans assumed disagreement concerning personally important values, they were also inaccurate in perceiving their adversaries’ actual opinions. Discussion focuses on the cognitive mechanisms underlying misperceptions of disagreement and strategies for reducing intergroup conflict. Members of partisan social groups often view their adversaries with suspicion, distrust, and outright animosity. It is not unusual to hear loyal members of the Republican party complain about Democrats’ ‘‘attack on traditional family values and the free market,’’ and to hear loyal Democrats chastise Republicans for their ‘‘war on the poor’’ or their ‘‘siege on the environment.’’ Such inflamed beliefs not only characterize disputes between these two political parties, but also can be heard in the debates between other social groups with competing ideologies, such as labor-management conflicts, environmentalist-business struggles, tensions between warring nations, and race-related problems. Undoubtedly, such hostile perceptions fuel much of the conflict and discord that surrounds intergroup relations. This article explores several open questions about intergroup perception. Just how accurate are partisans at perceiving the motives, goals, and opinions of their adversaries? Where—and why—do their perceptions go astray? The little work that has been carried out on perception of intergroup attitudes has demonstrated the gross inaccuracies of perceivers’ intuitions. In one of the first studies in this area, Robinson and his colleagues (Robinson, Keltner, Ward, & Ross, 1995) presented pro-choice and pro-life college students with scenarios describing cases of abortion (e.g., a high-school-age girl who became pregnant). For each scenario, participants expressed the level of sympathy they personally felt and estimated the level of sympathy felt by the typical pro-choice and pro-life participants in the study. Not only did the results show widespread perceptions of disagreement among both partisan groups, but these perceptions, when compared against the appropriate self-report ratings, proved to be greatly exaggerated. For example, pro-choice participants assumed they felt much more sympathy than the pro-life participants would, but, in fact, the two groups reported feeling almost equally sympathetic. Robinson and his colleagues replicated these perceptions of disagreement with other measures (e.g., estimates of the number of pregnancies resulting from casual affairs) and with other partisan social groups, demonstrating the generality of this finding (see also Keltner & Robinson, 1996, 1997; Robinson & Friedman, 1995; Robinson & Keltner, 1996; Thompson, 1995; Thompson & Nadler, 2000). These results complement and extend now-classic research inspired by social judgment theory, which found that members of partisan groups exaggerated the extremity of messages advocating their adversaries’ point of view (e.g., Hovland, Harvey, & Sherif, 1957). The research we report here took the findings of Robinson et al. (1995) as a starting point and extended this research by considering both the exact nature and source of disagreement perceptions. Like Robinson and his colleagues, we assume that partisans often exaggerate the extent of their disagreement with an out-group. We differ from Robinson et al. by contending that perceptions of disagreement are most prevalent for those values that are core to, or defining of, the perceiver’s own ideological stance. In essence, partisans assume that their adversaries Address correspondence to John Chambers, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 112250, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, e-mail: [email protected]. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 38 Volume 17—Number 1 Copyright r 2006 Association for Psychological Science contest the very values they care most deeply about (see the General Discussion for a description of the presumed cognitive mechanisms). Thus, we assume that Republicans see Democrats as desiring to undermine traditional family values—one of the values central to the conservative world view—whereas Democrats view Republicans as wanting to deprive the poor of rights and opportunities—one of the values central to the liberal world view. These perceptions may prove faulty because the typical Democrat probably favors family values, and the typical Republican probably favors the rights of the poor. Thus, each side overestimates the true margin of disagreement. At the same time, we suspect that partisans perceive far less disagreement between themselves and their adversaries with respect to values that are core to their adversaries’ ideological position. People with strong pro-choice leanings, for instance, may favor ‘‘the value of human life’’ (a value typically associated with the pro-life stance) and accurately recognize that those on the pro-life side do as well. Hence, pro-choice people may see minimal difference between their position on this value and that of their pro-life adversaries. In this case, there may be a close correspondence between what partisans assume their adversaries believe and what their adversaries actually report believing. We conducted two studies to test our hypotheses about assumed (and factual) bases of disagreement, in the context of the debates over abortion (Study 1) and politics (Study 2). In each study, we asked members of partisan social groups to make judgments regarding value issues that were either central or noncentral to their partisan philosophy. For each issue, partisans reported their personal position (‘‘favor’’ or ‘‘oppose’’) and estimated the position of the typical out-group member. As in Robinson et al. (1995), we compared these responses to obtain three indices: actual disagreement (self-rating vs. out-group’s self-rating), perceived disagreement (self-rating vs. estimate of out-group’s position), and overestimated disagreement (estimate of out-group’s position vs. out-group’s self-rating). We predicted that partisans would perceive (and, indeed, exaggerate) disagreement with members of the adversarial group most dramatically on those value issues central to their own philosophical position. For less central value issues, we predicted partisans would perceive less disagreement, and that these perceptions would achieve a greater degree of accuracy.