The misperception of American political polarization
Feb. 3, 2012
Leaf Van Boven
The American flag is red, white and blue but when it comes to politics
Americans see the nation as Red and Blue. News outlets such as CNN and
The New Yorker describe the growing political polarization between
Republicans and Democrats. But according to Leaf Van Boven, a psychologist
at CU-Boulder who just completed a study on polarization, data shows
Americans are much less polarized politically then many people believe.
CUT 1 “Data’s been collected with representative samples from 1968 through
2004. It’s very, very clear that Americans generally overestimate the degree of
polarization between Democrats and Republicans. And they do that across a
bunch of different issues and we’ve seen that that is true since we’ve been
taking those measures.”
According to the study by Van Boven, the gap between Republicans and
Democrats would rank half a scale point on a five-point scale. However,
people believe there’s a significant difference between the two parties.
People’s perception of polarization comes from their own political beliefs, says
Van Boven.
CUT 2 “To a large extent the variability and perceived polarization comes from
people’s own strength of support for one candidate over the other. And we’ve
seen this with other issues as well so supporter opposition to the death
penalty or a constitutional ban on abortions. The more strongly people feel,
the more polarized they see other Americans. So that is really the key find.
The misconception, he says, then affects how citizens will vote and who will
become involved in political activities.
CUT 3 “Many commentators have pointed out that the nature of American
politics really pushes people who are the most extreme to be most involved
in politics. We really end up in a situation where … we’re making decisions on
who to vote for, how much we like one candidate versus the other based on
a faulty assumption of how divided we are, even how divided the candidates
might be.”
However, while Van Boven‘s data states there is a misconception of
polarization, it is uncertain how much polarization has grown over time.
CUT 4 “We can’t say for certain that there’s been no change in polarization
over time, but what is clear is that Americans see themselves as very sharply
polarized. And that degree of perceived polarization dramatically overstates
the actual degree of polarization.
Van Boven’s research is focused on the consciousness of everyday life and
people’s mental representation of psychological experiences in themselves
and others.
-CU-