In 1961, Psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner coined the term mirror image perceptions to describe the similarities he observed in Americans’ and Soviets’ stereotypic views of one another.
Bronfenbrenner, writing during the height of Cold War tensions, noted that both sides in this grand ideological struggle tended to see their own leadership as good and nobly motivated and the other side’s leaders as corrupt and driven by malicious intent. Both Soviets and Americans perceived their own people as essentially peaceful with opinions free from governmental coercion, while seeing the other side’s people as aggressive and deluded by ideology and state sponsored (capitalist or communist) propaganda. Other researchers have gone on to note that this mirror image pattern, two opposing sides in an ideological struggle having virtually identical stereotypes of each other, is a common characteristic in intergroup relations.
It is hard not to see a similar dynamic playing out in contemporary America’s culture war struggle. If you take some time to read or watch each side’s partisan media voices, you should be struck quite quickly by the similarity of the charges each side levies against the other. The mirror metaphor is an apt one, however, as the image each side has of the other is usually similar but in a sense “reversed,” in that the accusations flow from each sides own unique moral sensibilities. Which generally means that both sides have to squint a bit to recognize their own visage in the other.
So for example, here are just a few places where liberals and conservatives hold eerily similar views of each other:
• Both sides see the other as political extremists. It is common now in both political blogospheres to hear pundits bemoan the radical shift toward extremism in the other side. The right harps constantly on the “out of the mainstream” and “radical” left wing agenda pursued by President Obama and his cronies (read Reid & Pelosi) in Congress. Charges of socialism and worse abound. The left, on the other hand, sees a Republican party purged of any moderate influence and increasingly coalescing around a hard right economic (tea party) and foreign policy (neoconservative) consensus. The charges of choice here are “corporate apologist” and “war criminal”. Nazi references fly from both corners, and both sides accuse the other of trampling on their beloved Constitution.
• Both sides see their own policy positions as motivated by national interest and the other side’s by crass political posturing. Democrats see Republicans as the “party of no”, devoid of any true policy convictions and driven only by their desire to see President Obama fail. Republicans, on the other hand, are fond of touting themselves as men and women of “principle” (particularly principled fiscal conservatism), and their increasingly populist rhetoric is a clear attempt to claim the mantle of the “voice of the people”. Democrats are portrayed by the right wing media as power hungry Machiavellians, motivated only by their desire to grow the government, raise your taxes, and thus solidify the power of the bureaucratic class and fat cat union bullies. Both left and right see their foreign policies as hard headed attempts to keep America safe, and the other side as willing to politicize terrorism policy for partisan advantage or in defense of some warped ideological aspiration (American exceptionalism or political correctness).
• Both sides see their own policy positions as genuine and logical and the other’s as coerced and irrational. Both sides like to portray their own base’s opinions as grounded in “common sense,” and the other side’s as a product of cynical manipulation of popular sentiment orchestrated by political elites and bankrolled by partisan billionaire puppeteers. The epithet “kool-aid drinker” is hurled with equal frequency from the right and the left. Neither side sees criticism of the other side’s leaders as flowing from legitimate policy differences, but rather as a product of some irrational, emotional antipathy (racial prejudice or “Bush Derangement Syndrome”). Both sides tend to “psychologize” the other side’s opinions, and media figures seen as daring truth-tellers by their own side (e.g., Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann) are seen as dangerously unhinged by the other.
• Both sides see the other as fear mongering for political advantage. Throughout the Bush administration, Democrats accused Republicans of ginning up fear about terrorism to support neoconservative military ambitions and aggressive interrogation and detention policies against suspected enemy combatants. Now, Republicans accuse Democrats of engineering fear of global warming to support their radical environmentalist agenda, and of exaggerating claims of imminent economic collapse to support left-wing domestic policies. Both sides see their own fears as real, and the others as imagined.
• Both sides see the other as politicizing science. Democrats celebrated the election of Barack Obama as a return to the rule of science after nearly a decade of repeated claims that Bush Administration officials were molding science to fit their ideological and religious beliefs. This point was made most prominently in regard to climate change science, but also about the use of data surrounding contraceptive use and endangered species protection. Republicans are now making remarkably similar claims of liberal scientific meddling, fueled by the release of a series of suspicious sounding emails from British climate change scientists (so-called “climategate”). Interestingly, a meme is now emerging in conservative circles arguing that liberals’ belief that global warming is “settled science,” and their refusal to acknowledge scientific data challenging their established beliefs, is itself an example of being blinded by pseudo-religious faith (see George Will’s recent Washington Post Column).
• Both sides see the other as lacking bipartisan spirit. What more can one say? If it wasn’t quite so sad, we could all share a smile over the irony of two political factions so bitterly locked in a partisan battle that they respond to a public outcry for bipartisanship with dueling accusations of the other side’s lack thereof.
Mirror image perceptions are a hallmark of judgmental bias. When both sides hold virtually identical negative beliefs about each other, it suggests that there is very little “there”, there — and that the groups’ mutual (mis)perceptions are likely fueled by biases that arise from intergroup conflict.
Of course, when evaluating political speech one always has to work at separating out rhetoric (what elites say for strategic reasons but don’t really believe) from true belief (what people don’t just say but really believe, and what I as a psychologist am primarily interested in). In a subsequent blog entry, I plan to post some yourmorals data documenting left-right mirror image perceptions in our respondents. I will follow that with a series of posts discussing some of the psychological biases that I believe produce mirror image perceptions, and in turn fuel partisan mistrust and uncivil politics.
– Pete Ditto
The fairness and reciprocity of this post appeals to liberals, but is it quantitatively accurate? Or do the 3 additional moral foundations espoused by conservatives lead them to more counterfactual beliefs than liberals? What liberal beliefs correspond to denial of evolution and global warming, in terms of disregard for the weight of expert opinion, for example?
My daughter’s college Public Policy department is considering a survey of pundits to test this question. It will be tough to
measure the results fairly, i think, but the concept is interesting.
[…] above paragraph is likely correct for some (not all) members of the list, along the lines of this wonderful post by Peter Ditto of UC-Irvine, concerning the ways that liberals and conservatives mirror each other in their negative […]
[…] examples of this include Pete Ditto’s entry entitled Are Liberals and Conservatives Polar Opposites or Mirror Images? the Yin/Yang, Shiva/Vishnu, and “Let go of for and against” concepts that pop up throughout […]
The quiz for this has no way to accurately disprove the hypothesis. There is no option to say that you don’t think one side is bad and one side is good. If I am from party A and you ask who is more evil/stupid, party A or B? I’m not going to say A, but then the only remaining choice is to say B.
I don’t know that mirror perceptions prove that there isn’t substance. Fear is an effective motivator. It is entirely possible that Republicans are trying to boost defense spending by exaggerating external threats and that Democrats are exaggerating environmental threats to boost environmental spending. Both or neither may be true. Psychology can’t answer the question about the objective truth of the degree of external threat from military enemies or the United States nor from environmental questions.
Bipartisanship is a better choice of psychology / sociology since that is subjective. And there I think the collapse of bipartisanship is because on many crucial issues the parties no longer disagree about means but also about ends.
In the 1960s government was frequently trying to allocate resources between groups that supported one another but saw their needs as greater than those of other groups. The government was playing a referee role but everyone was “on the same side”. NARAL and NRL aren’t fighting about how best to allocate resources to accomplish their common goals, they have opposite goals. Finding any areas of common interest is difficult and since they disagree so fundamentally on ends victory rather than cooperation may very well be a better strategy.
Please don’t use this test. I don’t think it’s right even to ask these questions. Yes, or course, I have my bad opinion of Republicans, and individual by individual I will be defensive or treat them w/ a long-handled spoon. But in the complete abstract when asked about Democrats and Republicans I will say they are people each endowed with an equal vantage on the truth. kg
This is tough. I agree that each side is using that rhetoric, but try as I might I cannot imagine that the repub leadership is actually honest about it….. I need to think…..
The problem with this quiz is that there should be four choices, one, the other, both, and neither.
Both parties actively engage in scare tactics, both actively utilize emotional rhetoric while claiming scientific backing, neither actually cares about “America” at all.
The assumption that a person must be either Republican or Democrat, and that they represent any kind of “opposition”, polar or mirror, is fallacious. There ain’t a lick of difference between them.
I agree that their should be four choices dem., rep., both, or neither. I would have answered every question with “both” as the answer. I think they care about america, but they care about being elected more.
I left all of them blank. In all negative cases I thought the statement was equally true and pretty much in all positive statements I did not think the statement applied to either party. Overall with no other choices the section is impossible for me to answer honestly.
Rick, I think the same as you. Only an ideologist or a party apparatchik would answer opting for one or the other. Besides it is unfair that in America you can only be considered Dem. or Rep., when there are other possibilities.
Too few questions and forced choice between Dems and Reps may not necessarily measure stereotypes. Some people are genuinely sitting on the fence (with no feelings, or expectations either way) and the survey doesn’t capture this possibility either.
This test is not a fair measurement of values. I wanted in almost every instance an opportunity to say that both Democrats and Republicans are offenders or upholders of certain values, yet I was forced to make a choice. I suppose that may be the object of the tester, but it does not accurately reflect what I believe when I must choose one party over the other while I believe both are guilty or innocent of the value mentioned.