Worldviews are “a set of values and beliefs that describe how the world should and does work” (Brandt & Crawford, 2020). Or as I like to say: how the world is and ought to be. Across multiple countries, worldview conflict is associated with prejudice – that is, unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding groups perceived as having incompatible worldviews. Such prejudice gets especially nasty when the groups in question compete for power and influence, as in the case of political factions and parties.
Political prejudice is especially prevalent in America. And the most prejudiced among us? That’s right – the well-educated. Consider:
“An analysis of American National Election Studies data from 1964 to 2012 shows that education is related to …increases in ideological (liberal vs. conservative) prejudice.” (Henry & Napier, 2017)
“…there is a growing body of research suggesting that greater cognitive sophistication and expertise often predicts greater levels of political bias not less.” Ditto, Clark, Liu et al, (2019)
“[Political] polarization did not abate among subjects highest in Numeracy; instead, it increased.” (Kahan et al, 2013)
“[Political] bias is not a consequence of overreliance on heuristic or intuitive forms of reasoning; on the contrary, subjects who scored highest in cognitive reflection were the most likely to display ideologically motivated cognition.” (Kahan, 2012)
All this is by way of introduction to a survey of 2,100 Americans by the public interest group More in Common and summarized in their report, The Perception Gap: How False Impressions are Pulling Americans Apart. The Perception Gap refers to the difference between each survey respondent’s estimate of how many people hold a certain view and the actual percentage of people who hold that view. For example, if a Democrat estimated that 50 percent of Republicans believed that racism still exists in America, but in fact, 60 percent do, then their Perception Gap for this issue would be 10 percent.
The Perception Gap survey found that both Democrats and Republicans have a distorted understanding of each others’ views. This table documents the Democrats’ Gap in understanding Republicans:
Surprisingly, the most educated Democrats are the least accurate in their estimate of Republican views. (The same is not true of Republican respondents). Check it out:
Note that the Democrats’ Perception Gap increased about 4 percentage points with each level of education. So what is it about education that makes Democrats so dense about Republicans? The More in Common researchers speculate that it has to do with how people’s social environments are influenced by their level of educational attainment. As the researchers put it: “People who achieve an undergraduate or postgraduate university education tend to mix with others like them, perhaps reflecting their workplace, neighborhood or social circles. If the “socialization” explanation is correct, then better educated Democrats should report having fewer and fewer friends with different political views, but the same will not hold true of Republicans.” The researchers tested and confirmed this hypothesis. Democrat respondents’ friend circles did indeed become less politically diverse as they became more educated. The same was not true of Republicans. In other words, educated Democrats tend to live in a partisan bubble, less so educated Republicans.
References:
Brandt, M. J. and J. T. Crawford (2020). Chapter One - Worldview conflict and prejudice. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. B. Gawronski, Academic Press. 61: 1-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2019.09.002
Ditto PH, Clark CJ, Liu BS, et al. Partisan Bias and Its Discontents. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2019;14(2):304-316. doi:10.1177/1745691618817753
Henry, PH and Napier, JL Education is Related to Greater Ideological Prejudice, Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 81, Issue 4, Winter 2017, Pages 930–942, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfx038
Kahan, Dan M., Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection: An Experimental Study (November 29, 2012). Judgment and Decision Making, 8, 407-24 (2013), Cultural Cognition Lab Working Paper No. 107, Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 272, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2182588 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2182588
Kahan, Dan M. and Peters, Ellen and Dawson, Erica and Slovic, Paul, Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government (September 3, 2013). Behavioural Public Policy, 1, 54-86, Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 307, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2319992 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2319992
The Perception Gap: How False Impressions are Pulling Americans Apart (2019) More in Common. Principal Authors: Daniel Yudkin, Stephen Hawkins and Tim Dixon. https://perceptiongap.us/media/zaslaroc/perception-gap-report-1-0-3.pdf#