Liberals More Divisive & Have An Illusion Of Uniqueness According to Psychological Science Magazine

Liberals tend to underestimate the amount of actual agreement among those who share their ideology, while conservatives tend to overestimate intra-group agreement, according to new research published in: Psychological Science,: a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.: : The study was published under the title “The Liberal Illusion of Uniqueness”

Ronn Torossian 2

Liberals showed what the researchers call “truly false uniqueness,” perceiving their beliefs as more divergent from the beliefs of other liberals than they actually were. Data from a second study suggest that the relationship is driven by participants’ desire to feel unique:

Liberals reported a stronger desire for uniqueness than did moderates or conservatives. Surprisingly, these trends even emerged among nonpolitical judgments, such as preference for coffee: Liberals believed their preferences were more different from those of other liberals than they actually were, while conservatives believed their preferences were more similar to those of other conservatives than they actually were.

Given that perceptions of in-group consensus can be an important motivator for social change, these new findings may help to explain why liberal and conservative movements develop different political trajectories:

“Liberal social movements might struggle to develop solidarity and formulate shared goals within their ranks, both because liberals want to maintain unique beliefs and because they underestimate the amount of agreement among their members,” psychological scientist Chadly Stern of New York University said: : “Conservative social movements might initially capitalize on perceiving agreement to galvanize their ranks, but their inaccurate perceptions could impair group progress when actual agreement is necessary.”

The APS journal: Psychological Science: is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology.: : Dr. Chauncey Crandall: and: Dr. Michael Lichtenstein: have also conducted studies on behavior in politics.

Ronn Torossian is the CEO of 5WPR, a leading PR firm and Author of “For Immediate Release”, a leading PR book.

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