False Polarization and False Moderation
Political Opponents Overestimate the Extremity of Each Other’s Ideologies but Underestimate Each Other’s Certainty
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21208438 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Craig W Blatz (MacEwan University, corresponding author), Brett Mercier (0000-0003-3731-8752, University of California, Irvine) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 521-529 |
| Publication date | 2018-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Psychological and Personality Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1948-5506 • E-ISSN: 1948-5514 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1948550617712034 |
| OpenAlex | W2684965817 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 14 |
Past research finds that people hold moderate views on political issues while believing others are extreme. This false polarization has been demonstrated across a variety of different attitude dimensions and is explained by naive realism, the belief that one holds an unbiased view of reality. We argue that because people believe they see the world objectively, they should be very certain about their opinions, more certain than others expect. In three studies, we tested this false moderation of attitude certainty hypothesis and attempted to replicate past research on false polarization of attitude stance and perceived ideology of others. All three studies revealed a false moderation effect on judgements of certainty. Additionally, we replicate the finding that people false polarize others’ ideology but do not find evidence for false polarization of specific stance
Certainty · Epistemology · Ideology · Moderation · Political science · Politics · Realism · Replicate · Cultural Differences and Values · Law · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
Behavioral Public Performance
Polarization in the contemporary political and media landscape
Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts
Culture wars, perception gap and affective polarization
Social Psychological Perspectives on Political Polarization
Actual and Perceived Partisan Bias in Judgments of Political Misinformation as Lies
The Misandry Myth
Source Memory Is More Accurate for Opinions than for Facts
Moral grandstanding and political polarization
Attributions of emotion and reduced attitude openness prevent people from engaging others with opposing views
How we think about the political stances of others
Demasiado lejos? Cómo la polarización mal percibida alimenta la polarización afectiva en España
When Disagreement Gets Ugly
Combining effect size estimates in meta-analysis with repeated measures and independent-groups designs.
Objectivity in the Eye of the Beholder
Perceiving Political Polarization in the United States
You Cannot be Serious
Unpacking attitude certainty
Actual versus assumed differences in construal
Attitude strength
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |