From an early age, we are socialized to see the world divided between “the good” and “the bad.” When we are children and play in the patio, nobody wants to be the bad, and when it is time to disguise themselves, we all fight who will wear Luke Skywalker’s suit and nobody wants to wear Darth Vader.
This simplified way of seeing the world as a struggle between good and evil, between good people and bad people, does not disappear when we grow. On the contrary, it is usually reinforced as we develop social identities that define who we are in adult life.
This is especially evident in the scope of our political identities, and in particular, of partisan loyalties to which people cling. Current political culture is extremely tribaland the dividing lines between left and rights are stronger than ever. Party It is an incredibly powerful force. Not only just put a party label to a politician to determine whether or not we support him – regardless of what that person really defends – but also Mold our perception of the state of the country and the economy.
But the effects of partisanship and tribal belonging to Neutra Political Band are not limited only to the electoral field. Party is also a powerful social force. It affects who we decided to interact, who we invite A beer or even who Hirings. Know who your neighbor votes – and if it’s the right “band” – influences whether you see him as a good person or not.
In a Recent study with Markus Wagner (University of Vienna) Published in the International Review Political Science Research & Methodwe show that the opposite also happens. Knowing if someone is good or bad influences whether we think it is one of the “ours” or one of the “others.” In other words: partisans They project Their own political identities about people who consider good, and project the political identity of their opponents on those who do not like.
Who Gandalf and Cinderella votes?
The first part of the study It consisted of a social experiment that applied a political turn to a children’s game. In a representative survey thousands of people in the United States and the United Kingdom, participants saw images of fictional characters of popular culture: heroes such as Captain America or Spiderman, and villains such as Voldemort de Harry Potter or Cersei Lannister de Game of Thrones. Then, they were asked to guess the political affiliation of each character. The results were surprising: the participants assumed that the heroes voted for the same party and that the villains voted for the opposite party. For example, the left ones assumed that Harry, Ron and Hermione voted to the left, while those of rights were convinced that this trio of magicians voted to the right. This trend was repeated with characters from many other film and fiction stories.
The second part of the study It went beyond the fictional universe. In a different social experiment, the participants read a brief story about a local politician. In a version, the politician appeared as a generous person, who donated money to charity. In the other version, the same politician presented himself negatively, accused of corruption. At no time was the politician’s political party mentioned.
Despite this absence of information, the respondents falsely “remembered” the politician’s partisan affiliation according to the moral tone of the story. The participants who voted to the left and read the history of the generous politician said they were a leftist politician. The conservatives, reading the same story, remembered that he was conservative. The opposite happened when the participants read the story about the corrupt politician. These results are shocking: even when there was nothing to remember and they could simply have said that the party was not mentioned, voters interpreted what they wanted between lines, guided by their tribal political identities.
Of course, these studies – although fun to design and analyze – highlights a major problem: the tribal power of politics, and especially of partisan identities, to undermine the rationality of voters. The politically motivated projection – that is to assume that those who are good must be “ours” and that those who are bad should be “of others” – not only mold how we see others; It also reinforces and consolidates partisan divisions.
If we assume that our neighbor is a bad neighbor because he votes to the opposite party, and at the same time we believe that someone votes the opposite party because it is a bad neighbor, we quickly enter a cycle where our tribal instincts feel increasingly justified. This cycle of vilipendiar delves divisions and makes it difficult to find points in common. If we continue to allow partisanship to mold not only how we vote, but also how we see each other, we run the risk of transforming our political rivals into something even worse: in enemies.
#Spiderman #left #Harry #Potter
