How to Measure Perception Gaps

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Wright: Can we tell whether this thing s true or false? And if it's false, that's try to down regulateit. What i love about the perception gap work is here's a way that we can measure tangibly that fasa could do. If thereis an almost forty % perception gap, like you can't sit down and have a conversation. You always think the other sides coming from a kind of bad faith. Wright: Imagine if congress legislated, came up with some kind of protection where every year fay spoke, rany of the social mediat platforms had to publish the perception gaps along these sort of effective polarization metrics.

What do you think the other side thinks? Guest Dan Vallone is the Director of More in Common U.S.A., an organization that’s been asking Democrats and Republicans that critical question. Their work has uncovered countless “perception gaps” in our understanding of each other. For example, Democrats think that about 30 percent of Republicans support "reasonable gun control," but in reality, it’s about 70 percent. Both Republicans and Democrats think that about 50 percent of the other side would feel that physical violence is justified in some situations, but the actual number for each is only about five percent. “Both sides are convinced that the majority of their political opponents are extremists,” says Dan. “And yet, that's just not true.” Social media encourages the most extreme views to speak the loudest and rise to the top—and it’s hard to start a conversation and work together when we’re all arguing with mirages. But Dan’s insights and the work of More in Common provide a hopeful guide to unraveling the distortions we’ve come to accept and correcting our foggy vision.