Americans see their political opponents as stupid rather than evil 

The political divide between right and left in America is the worst it's been in decades. It seems as if both sides view the other as a particularly cruel brand of evil if you listen to the news media. But that just isn't the case.

Instead of seeing their political others as evil, most Americans just look at those with differing views as just plain old stupid according to research published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The authors of the study wrote that one of the most concerning developments in modern politics was the rise of polarization in its discourse, noting some public figures had taken to saying "conservatives think liberals are stupid, and liberals think conservatives are evil.”

However, the idea that some individuals in the country see those on the opposite side of the political spectrum as evil isn't quite accurate. In reality, most people see their political opponents as unintelligent rather than immoral based on four separate studies. 

In the first study, the researchers set out to examine if viewing one’s political opponents as immoral or unintelligent were two separate factors and recruited 481 Americans from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform to confirm that both perceptions were distinctive. 

“This first study revealed that perceptions of unintelligence and immorality are distinct… Both liberals and conservatives appeared to view each other as more unintelligent than immoral,” the authors wrote in their discussion of their findings for their first study. 

Once the researchers determined perceptions of unintelligence and immorality were two distinctive factors, they assessed both perceptions in liberals and conservatives shortly after a statewide vote on six amendments to North Carolina’s state constitution in 2018. 

PsyPost noted the 360 participants were read the six amendments and told conservatives generally supported the changes while liberals generally opposed them, and were then asked to explain why they thought liberals and conservatives voted the way they did. 

Liberals were more likely to say conservative voters chose to support the amendments because they were unintelligent and immoral while conservative participants echoed the same explanations, describing the liberal voters as unintelligent and immoral as well. 

However, the important finding in the second study was the discovery that both liberals and conservatives rated “unintelligence as higher than immorality” and this association between unintelligence over immorality was larger among conservatives than liberals. 

The third study performed was designed to replicate the findings of the previous studies and surveyed 633 Americans, asking them to describe their alignment on a seven-point scale and rate unintelligence and immorality among both Democrats and Republicans. 

Again the researchers found that both self-described liberals and conservatives rated unintelligence higher than immorality and moved on to a fourth study to examine how the general perception of the population fit into ideas on unintelligence and immortality. 

The final study looked at meta-perceptions according to the researchers and it asked a group of 176 Americans to rate what they thought the average Republican and average Democrat thought about the other regardless of their own personal perceptions. 

Researchers again found the meta-perceptions of participants noted both Democrats and Republicans viewed the other as more unintelligent than immoral but also found the perceptions were more negative than they actually were in reality. 

“Participants correctly guessed that each group views each other as more unintelligent than immoral, but thought the perceptions would be more negative than they actually are,” the researchers wrote in the discussion of their fourth study. 

Rachel Hartmann is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina and one of the co-authors of the 2022 study. She explained to PsyPost that she wanted to be careful and not overclaim the conclusions that could be drawn from her research. 

"Our main finding is that political opponents see each other as more unintelligent than immoral,” Hartman told PsyPost, adding: “We don’t have the data yet to support any specific recommendations for how people should change the way they engage.” 

“When you come across someone on the opposite side of an issue, try to communicate your reasons for holding your belief, and listen when they talk about their own reasons,” Hartmann continued, noting smart people can disagree and that it's often a good thing. 

“Having a well-functioning democracy means having a plurality of ideas that people can come together to discuss civilly,” Hartmann concluded, which is something you might want to consider the next time you encounter someone whose views differ from yours.