Excerpts

Overconfidence in radical politics (van Prooijen, 2021)

The political extremes perceive the social and political world in more clear-cut and sharply defined categories than moderates do…Politicians who take a relatively extreme position in a political debate articulate less complicated arguments than politicians who take a relatively centrist position.

Persistent beliefs: Political extremism predicts ideological stability over time (Zwicker, , van Prooijen, & Krouwel, 2020) :

Previous research suggests that political extremists have stronger convictions in their beliefs than moderates… Results [in our longitudinal study] indicated that for ideological orientation measured at three time points, politically extreme respondents had…more stable ideologies over time—than moderates. Furthermore, the effect appeared more pronounced among people at the left than people at the right.

Why America Needs Moderates (Joseph Romance, May 4, 2023)

So what do moderates believe?

They’re opposed to extremism. For one, they are against “extremism”—the belief that the political world must be transformed in a complete and new way.

Their humility exceeds their certainty. To the far right and far left, the “new world” they seek is not just better in some material ways—it is more just, fair and moral. To create a just and moral world does not allow for compromise. Those on the political extremes are certain that pursuing that world is absolutely the correct approach: They possess an almost religious belief in that radically new world that is waiting to be born. 

But moderates are a different animal. Moderates believe that moderation requires a fundamental sense of humility, that we are unsure what course of action is best. They accept that politics is not about salvation, but about marginal improvements—attempting either to improve things for the better or to lessen the chances that bad things will happen. And in terms of rhetoric, moderates believe in toning down any talk that the opposition is always wrong, let alone evil. 

In short, moderates work to puncture the kind of ideological groupthink that can occur when many people who are politically certain come together. They’re clearly not ditherers who believe in nothing. Instead, they approach politics and policy with a sense of humility about accepting the future is unknown and a belief that they should encounter the world with respect for the possibility of error. 

Moderates’ dual commitment to anti-extremism and humility are absolutely vital to the healthy functioning of America’s political system. Why is that? A party system in a democracy requires a commitment to the great whole—to the idea that the survival of our political system matters more than the victory of one’s desired policy prescriptions. 

And when you believe that maintaining the system is most important, compromising on issues is central. 

Moderates (Fowler et al, 2023) - Excerpts, except as noted.

Conventional wisdom holds that American voters are polarized and hyperpartisan. Yet when scholars look at survey data, we find response patterns that look neither polarized nor hyperpartisan. We find there are many genuine moderates in the American electorate.

Around a third of Americans are moderates. Of these, almost three-fourths have preferences across policy questions that are well approximated by an ideal point on an underlying liberal–conservative ideological dimension. Most of these individuals have centrist views, genuinely in the middle on most issues. Paraphrase

We estimate that approximately 1 in 5 Americans expresses policy views that are neither well described by a single left–right ideological dimension nor best classified as random…[These individuals] hold an idiosyncratic mix of liberal and conservative positions.

[Moderates] are more responsive to candidate ideology and professional experience than are their ideological counterparts.

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References:

Why America Needs Moderates  Joseph Romance/Discourse Magazine May 4, 2023)

Fowler, Anthony & Hill, Seth J. & Lewis, Jeffrey B. & Tausanovitch, Chris & Vavreck, Lynn & Warshaw, Christopher, 2023. "Moderates," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 117(2), pages 643-660, May. doi: 10.1017/S0003055422000818

van Prooijen, J-W. (2021). Overconfidence in radical politics. In J. P. Forgas, B. Crano, & K. Fiedler (Eds.), The Psychology of Populism: The Tribal Challenge to Liberal Democracy (pp. 143-157) Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003057680-10

Zwicker, M. V., van Prooijen, J.-W., & Krouwel, A. P. M. (2020). Persistent beliefs: Political extremism predicts ideological stability over time. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 23(8), 1137–1149. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220917753