A series of eight studies conducted in the United States found that people generally tend to overestimate their political opponents’ willingness to accept basic moral wrongs. This tendency to exaggerate the immorality of political opponents was observed not only in discussions of hot political topics but also regarding fundamental moral values. Many people believe that the opposing political side finds blatant wrongs acceptable. The research was published in PNAS Nexus.
Political animosity in the U.S. has been steadily growing over the past 40 years. Many Americans report that they hate the opposing political party more than they love their own, a sentiment associated with rising support for political violence. Studies show that both Democrats and Republicans believe their opponents are more extreme, harbor more prejudice, and conform more closely to demographic stereotypes than they actually do. They even tend to overestimate how much they disagree with the other side on specific policy issues.
Study author Curtis Puryear and his colleagues propose an even more significant misperception of political opponents, which they call the “basic morality bias.” This bias refers to the exaggerated perception that outgroup members, in this case, political opponents, lack basic moral values—that they accept fundamental moral wrongs. The authors describe this bias as “basic” because it is not about contentious political issues or nuanced moral dilemmas but about widely agreed-upon moral wrongs in society (e.g., theft or wrongful imprisonment).
The authors clarify that this bias does not mean individuals believe the other side is completely devoid of all moral capacities. Instead, individuals tend to overestimate the other group’s willingness to accept basic moral wrongs.
To investigate the existence of the basic morality bias and explore potential remedies, the researchers conducted a series of eight studies. The first study analyzed 5.8 million tweets from 5,800 partisans. The authors examined how often words denying the other side’s basic moral values were used to describe political opponents. These words included terms like “rapist,” “pedophile,” “felon,” “thief,” “sociopath,” “murderer,” “molest,” “homicidal,” and “psychopath.”
The second study surveyed 346 MTurk workers (240 Democrats and 106 Republicans), who rated the immorality of various moral issues (e.g., fraud, child pornography, homicide, embezzlement, animal abuse, cheating on a spouse, wrongful imprisonment). They then rated how they believed the average Democrat and the average Republican would rate these issues. Participants also completed assessments of their willingness to engage with political opponents and how much they dehumanize them. The third study was similar but used a larger group recruited through Prolific. Participants were told they would receive a bonus for correctly guessing the views of the average Democrat or Republican.
Studies 4 through 8 were survey experiments that explored how correcting the basic morality bias influenced participants’ views of the other side. In these experiments, participants interacted with or were informed about the views of a fictional character with opposing political beliefs. Study 4 was conducted in person at a public university in the southeastern U.S., where participants were compensated with an ice pop. The remaining studies were conducted online, using MTurk workers or participants recruited through Qualtrics panels.
The first study revealed that words indicating basic morality bias were especially prevalent in political tweets. The proportion of tweets using such words has increased over time. In 2013, only about 0.5% of political tweets from both liberals and conservatives used these terms. This share increased significantly over time, particularly among liberals, and peaked in 2018. In that year, 3% of tweets by liberals used words reflecting basic morality bias, compared to about 1.25% of political tweets by conservatives. By 2022, a little more than 2% of tweets by liberals referencing conservative elites or identity used basic morality bias words, compared to just under 2% of tweets by conservatives mentioning liberal elites or identity.
The results of studies 2 and 3 showed that both Republicans and Democrats vastly overestimated the percentage of supporters from the other side who approve of basic moral wrongs. For example, Democrats estimated that more than 25% of Republicans supported wrongful imprisonment, while in reality, less than 4% of Republicans held such views. Similarly, Republicans in the third study believed that around 32% of Democrats approved of cheating on a spouse, while fewer than 5% of Democrats expressed such views.
Democrats also believed that over 30% of Republicans approved of tax fraud, when the actual percentage was under 5%. Similarly, Republicans estimated that around 25% of Democrats approved of tax fraud, but the real figure was less than 3%.
The findings from studies 4 through 8 showed that correcting the basic morality bias reduced dehumanization of political opponents and increased participants’ willingness to engage with them (in studies 4, 6, and 7). It also reduced participants’ inclination to opt out of collaborating with political opponents (study 5). Furthermore, correcting the basic morality bias for one member of the opposing party decreased dehumanization of the entire political group (study 8).
“The United States is witnessing historic levels of political hostility and gridlock. This animosity is partly grounded in misperceptions of opponents’ political beliefs, but we find many Americans overestimate political opponents’ willingness to accept even the most basic moral wrongs. These findings suggest individuals and practitioners working to foster cross-partisan interaction might first correct this basic morality bias. Specifically, we show that learning a single opponent condemns basic moral wrongs increases behavioral engagement with political opponents and decreases dehumanization of the entire political outgroup,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the psychological mechanisms influencing the perception of political opponents. However, the authors note that the studies were primarily conducted using online samples, which tend to be more politically engaged than the average American. It also remains unclear how long the corrections to the basic morality bias observed in these experiments will last.
The paper, “People believe political opponents accept blatant moral wrongs, fueling partisan divides,” was authored by Curtis Puryear, Emily Kubin, Chelsea Schein, Yochanan E. Bigman, Pierce Ekstrom, and Kurt Gray.