IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v119y2022pe2116851119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans’ support for partisan violence

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph S. Mernyk

    (a Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;)

  • Sophia L. Pink

    (a Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;)

  • James N. Druckman

    (b Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208;; c Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208)

  • Robb Willer

    (a Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;)

Abstract

Prominent events, such as the 2021 US Capitol attack, have brought politically motivated violence to the forefront of Americans’ minds. Yet, the causes of support for partisan violence remain poorly understood. Across four studies, we found evidence that exaggerated perceptions of rival partisans’ support for violence are a major cause of partisans’ own support for partisan violence. Further, correcting these false beliefs reduces partisans’ support for and willingness to engage in violence, especially among those with the largest misperceptions, and this effect endured for 1 mo. These findings suggest that a simple correction of partisans’ misperceptions could be a practical and scalable way to durably reduce Americans’ support for, and intentions to engage in, partisan violence.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph S. Mernyk & Sophia L. Pink & James N. Druckman & Robb Willer, 2022. "Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans’ support for partisan violence," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 119(16), pages 2116851119-, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2116851119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/119/16/e2116851119.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gloria Danqiao Cheng & Serena Does & Margaret Shih, 2024. "Partisan differences in perceived levels of democracy across presidential administrations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Michael Barber & Hans J. G. Hassell & Michael G. Miller, 2024. "Illiberal attitudes among US state legislative candidates," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2116851119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.