The Ideological Touring Test

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In a series of studies, we had people do what's called the ideological touring test. People try to see whether they can figure out that i'm faking or not. And one of my takeaways from that is like, people actually do encounter a lot of information about the other side. There may be some of these disagreements that really are substantive. Like we can't cure ourselves of misperceptions as a way out of it. Nowi still think those gaps existing, would be better off if they didn't. But some people believe some things that are just incompatible with what the other people believe. We have to find some way of running a country where both of those people get represented

Have you ever lost a friend to misperception? Have you lost a friend or a family member to the idea that your views got so different, that it was time to end the relationship — perhaps by unfriending each other on Facebook?

As it turns out, we often think our ideological differences are far greater than they actually are. Which means: we’re losing relationships and getting mired in polarization based on warped visions of each other.

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're talking with Adam Mastroianni, a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School who studies how we perceive and misperceive our social worlds. Together with Adam, we're going to explore how accurate — and inaccurate — our views of each other are. As you listen to our conversation, keep in mind that relationship you might have lost to misperception, and that you might be able to revive as a result of what you hear.

CORRECTIONS: In the episode, Adam says in 1978, 85% of people said they'd vote for a Black president, but the actual percentage is 80.4%. Tristan says that Republicans estimate that more than a third of Democrats are LGBTQ, but the actual percentage is 32%. Finally, Tristan refers to Anil Seth's notion of cognitive impenetrability, but that term was actually coined by the Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher Zenon W. Pylyshyn.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

Widespread Misperceptions of Long-term Attitude Change
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2107260119
Adam Mastroianni's research paper showing how stereotypes of the past lead people to misperceive attitude change, and how these misperceptions can lend legitimacy to policies that people may not actually prefer

Experimental History
https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/
Adam's blog, where he shares original data and thinks through ideas

Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32412-y
Academic study showing that Americans are living in what researchers called a “false social reality” with respect to misperceptions about climate views

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Mind the (Perception) Gap with Dan Vallone

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/33-mind-the-perception-gap

The Courage to Connect. Guests: Ciaran O’Connor and John Wood, Jr.

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/30-the-courage-to-connect

Transcending the Internet Hate Game with Dylan Marron

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/52-transcending-the-internet-hate-game