Article Summary
Introduction
This article reviews basic cognitive and affective processes that contribute to polarization, with a focus on how false beliefs about opposing partisans are acquired and maintained. The authors argue that differences in how liberals and conservatives think and feel are overstated in the current literature, and rather that both groups instead display similar patterns of biased perceptions about the other. These include false or exaggerated beliefs about the other group’s preferences, as well as false meta-perceptions, or beliefs about what the other group thinks you prefer. Together, these inaccurate beliefs and meta-beliefs are called “false polarization”.
Analytical Approach
NA - review article.
Main Findings
The authors argue that false polarization results from three basic mental processes: categorical thinking, simplification and emotional amplification:
Categorical thinking is the process by which we make separate groups out of continuous dimensions (e.g. labeling introverts and extroverts as separate groups rather than ends of a spectrum). People generally assume that members of social categories are more homogenous within groups and distinct from other groups than they actually are. This automatic process leads to perceptions of exaggerated differences between political parties.
Simplification refers to the variety of ways in which people streamline their representations of complex information. In the political domain, people underestimate the complex set of factors that influence others political positions (individual knowledge/values, group identification, elite cues, social context), instead attributing differing policy policy positions exclusively to different values. Second, people oversimplify the policy issues themselves, reducing them to moralized binaries instead of incorporating detailed intermediate solutions.
Emotional amplification refers to the ways in which anger can both heighten the previous two processes and directly contribute to polarization. Competitive rhetoric can strengthen ties to the ingroup and anger toward the outgroup. Anger in turn leads to both greater issue polarization and the perception that the opposing group is more extreme.
Implications
Identifying these processes suggests several solutions. You can give people accurate information about the other party (i.e. correct false perceptions and meta-perceptions). Alternatively, you can prompt people to think more complexly, which has been shown to be effective in producing compromises. Related efforts focus on pushing people to examine specific issues in greater depth. Finally, different strategies of emotional reappraisal (e.g. prompting sadness, rather than anger over natural disaster or violence) can lead people to compromise better.
Questions left unanswered
The authors focus on false polarization – the exaggerated differences of belief that people imagine – but do not directly address the underlying “true” polarization – Americans have strong policy differences that have grown over time. To what extent does the effectiveness of the strategies outlined depend on how actually polarized individuals are on a given issue.
Methods and Analysis
Was the study and its analyses pre-registered?: Study was conducted before 2015
Did the study rely on proxy variables to measure polarization?: N/A
Were standard p-value thresholds used (p<.05 or 95% Confidence Intervals that don’t overlap zero)?: NA
- Largest p-value presented as significant: NA
Were correlational results interpreted with causal language?: NA
Limitations / Weaknesses
As a review, this study focuses on experiments that were effective in reducing polarization. It would be additionally illuminating to discuss more which strategies have been ineffective, though this information may not have been readily available to the authors due to file drawer issues.
Open Data & Analyses
Does the article make the replication data publicly available?: NA
Does the article make the replication analysis scripts publicly available?: NA
Article Citation
Fernbach, P. M., & Van Boven, L. (2022). False polarization: Cognitive mechanisms and potential solutions. Current opinion in Psychology, 43, 1-6.
Bibtex
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@article{fernbach2022false,
title={False polarization: Cognitive mechanisms and potential solutions},
author={Fernbach, Philip M and Van Boven, Leaf},
journal={Current opinion in Psychology},
volume={43},
pages={1--6},
year={2022},
publisher={Elsevier}
}