Open AccessWidespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
Author(s) -
Adam Mastroianni,
Jason Dana
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2107260119
Subject(s) - limiting , immigration , democracy , term (time) , social psychology , political science , the imaginary , sociology , political economy , psychology , law , politics , mechanical engineering , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering , psychotherapist
Significance People change when they think others are changing, but people misperceive others’ changes. These misperceptions may bedevil people’s efforts to understand and change their social worlds, distort the democratic process, and turn imaginary trends into real ones. For example, participants believed that Americans increasingly want to limit immigration, which they said justifies tighter borders. However, participants also said that limiting immigration would not be right if attitudes had shifted against it––which is what actually occurred. Our findings suggest that the national discourse around contentious social issues, policies resulting from that discourse, and perhaps the opinions that drive discourse in the first place would be very different if people better understood how attitudes have and have not changed.