Abstract

Two studies examined misperceptions of disagreement in partisan social conflicts, namely in the debates over abortion (Study 1) and national politics (Study 2). We observed that partisans tend to exaggerate differences of opinion with their adversaries. Further, we found that perceptions of disagreement were most pronounced concerning values that were most important or central to the perceiver’s own ideology, whereas partisans perceived much less disagreement with respect to values central to their adversaries’ ideology. 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 suggested by our data.