Klein Nadav, Stavrova Olga
INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.
University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.
Commun Psychol. 2023 Dec 2;1(1):37. doi: 10.1038/s44271-023-00034-9.
People with extreme political attitudes are often assumed to be more resistant to change than moderates. If this assumption is true, extreme attitudes would ossify and continuously aggravate intergroup conflict and polarization. To test this assumption of stubborn extremists, we use large-scale panel surveys of attitudes towards policy issues and general ideologies across up to 13 years (combined N = 16,238). By tracking the same people across multi-year periods, we are able to ascertain whether extreme attitude holders exhibit less change in policy attitudes than moderates. The results revealed that extreme attitude holders are more likely to change their attitudes than moderates across various policy issues and general ideologies, and tend to directionally moderate over time. A final experiment finds that lay people incorrectly believe that extreme attitudes holders are more resistant to change, contrary to the results found here. We discuss the implications of this finding for understanding the evolution of extreme attitude holders, the misperception of ideological and policy differences, and the role of inaccurate out-group perceptions in shaping polarization and intergroup conflict.
人们通常认为，持极端政治态度的人比持温和态度的人更抗拒改变。如果这一假设成立，极端态度将会僵化，并不断加剧群体间的冲突和两极分化。为了验证这种顽固极端分子的假设，我们使用了大规模的面板调查，这些调查涉及长达13年的政策问题和一般意识形态的态度（样本总量N = 16238）。通过多年跟踪同一批人，我们能够确定持极端态度者在政策态度上的变化是否比持温和态度者少。结果显示，在各种政策问题和一般意识形态方面，持极端态度者比持温和态度者更有可能改变态度，并且随着时间的推移有趋于温和的倾向。最后一项实验发现，与这里的研究结果相反，外行人错误地认为持极端态度者更抗拒改变。我们讨论了这一发现对于理解极端态度持有者的演变、对意识形态和政策差异的误解，以及不准确的群体外认知在塑造两极分化和群体间冲突中的作用的意义。
