Naï Realism and Affirmative Action: Adversaries are More Similar Than They Think

Research on "naïve realism" has shown that opposing partisans in political debates overestimate the dissimilarity in their views. These studies explore and extend this "false polarization" phenomenon in the context of affirmative action. Study 1 showed that partisans on both sides of the affirmative action debate greatly overestimate the liberalism of proponents and the conservatism of opponents. Study 2 extended this finding by showing that both sides similarly overestimate the ideological consistency of the two sides with respect to other policy issues such as abortion and immigration. Study 3 demonstrated an implication of these results by showing that adversaries were more optimistic about negotiation when they were exposed to the actual rather than the assumed views of their counterparts. Discussion centers on strategies for reducing false polarization and its impact on dispute resolution, and the relevance of these findings for the affirmative action debate.