Don't Let Anyone Tell You Who To Hate
Also, partisan perceptions of the economy and learning to actually see our opponents — BCB #143
Who are America’s friends and enemies? Right now, it’s hard to tell. Trump has levied tariffs against longtime allies including Japan and the EU and continued cozying up to Vladimir Putin, upending the country’s previous support of Ukraine. Just as strikingly, he has advanced the narrative that these countries’ interests run counter to those of the United States, saying that the EU was formed to “screw” America and calling Canada “nasty.”
It’s becoming clear that these comments and the actions that reflect them are having a marked impact on Americans’ sense of who is a friend or a foe. Recent polling from YouGov and the Economist found that the number of Americans, especially Republicans, who feel that Canada and the EU are “unfriendly” or “the enemy” has skyrocketed since Trump took office.
Given that none of these countries have taken any acts of aggression against the US the last few months, it seems that these stark shifts are the result of America’s leader pushing a new narrative. It’s a striking illustration of the power of top-down messaging changing how regular people view the world at warp speed. The whole situation calls to mind George Orwell’s 1984, where citizens are made to believe that “Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.”
These perceptions, in turn, drive conflict. Case in point: Europeans’ impressions of the United States have plummeted since Trump took office.
A vibes-based economy
It’s not just perceptions of other countries that seem to be controlled by top down politics. You might think that people’s everyday economic circumstances are objective, determined by how much money they have in the bank and what their groceries cost. But that doesn’t seem to be entirely the case anymore. Since the start of the pandemic, economic statistics and consumer sentiment have come apart.
This means that people’s opinions of the economy are based far more on vibes than they used to be. This in turn means that their perceptions shift with changing narratives, without anything actually changing in the physical world. You can see this in how both Republicans and Democrats changed their views on the economy when both Biden and Trump were elected—long before any actual policy change could take effect.
You can see a slight drop in Republican sentiment right at the end of this chart, presumably after Trump’s tariff announcement. Early polling indicates that this trend is likely to continue as Americans reel from the president’s “Liberation Day.”
Learning about your enemies improves conflict
We all constantly stereotype members of the other side as more extreme than they are, and generally misunderstand and misperceive what they actually think. We’ve written before about how the ease with which Red and Blue Americans view the other side as antidemocratic creates a race to the bottom. But here’s the good news: research has also found that correcting these mistaken metaperceptions is a doable and effective strategy for depolarization. Now, a new report from Beyond Conflict offers a roadmap for how to do the work of correcting meta-misperceptions.
There have been previous hints that correcting metaperceptions is particularly productive. In the Strengthening Democracy Challange published last year, researchers at Stanford tested 25 different messages designed to decrease partisan animosity, and found that correcting misperceptions of people’s views of their political opponents was the most effective way to reduce support for undemocratic practices and reduce support for partisan violence.
Beyond Conflict breaks down this and other research, and lays out five tips for practitioners looking to conduct their own meta-misperception interventions:
Facilitate awareness of toxic polarization
For example, people at community, political, or cultural organizations might lead discussions or open dialogue within their groups that encourages participants to look past their initial impressions to understand how polarization distorts the way they see people from the other side.
Provide tools for correcting misperceptions
These might include tested videos that foster discussion or spur people to reflect on their perceptions, or reference guides that help people spot meta-misperceptions in schools, workplaces, or other civic organizations. Additionally, practitioners should discuss any tools they’re using with each other to collect feedback about what seems to work best in a given context.
Design structured, problem-solving intergroup dialogues
Conversations with people who disagree are an essential tool for correcting meta-misperceptions, especially when they center on collaborating to achieve a specific goal. “Instead of focusing solely on general interpersonal conversations,” Beyond Conflict explains, “practitioners can create structured environments for compromise-generating dialogue that integrate meta-misperception correction strategies.” This could take the form of a workshop that emphasizes participants’ shared values, college or high school curricula geared towards analyzing and debating polarizing issues, or a community roundtable where different people try to find a solution to a local problem.
Promote diverse intervention ecosystems for practitioners
Media literacy programs, collaborations with local media, and fact-checking partnerships are among the best ways to diversify and detoxify one’s information ecosystem.
Implement best practices for meta-misperception correction interventions
Research has shown that the best interventions for correcting our views of each other are those that focus on people’s individual stories and humanity; are specific to their audience, whether that’s a local political organization or a workplace; are integrated into existing programs with broader aims, like a community-building organization; and provide the opportunity for regular feedback from practitioners and participants so that they continue to be as effective as possible.
Crucially, this work is easy to find legitimate regardless of your politics, because it focuses on correcting our misunderstandings of each other rather than trying to change someone’s mind about political issues.
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