Abstract
Previous research on political stereotypes has focused on the perceived moral values or political attitudes of conservatives and liberals. The current studies examined whether laypeople hold stereotypes about the psychological traits of Republicans and Democrats and whether those stereotypes represent exaggerations of actual political differences. Participants completed measures of epistemic (Study 1), existential (Study 2), and ideological (Study 2) motives. Participants also completed these measures based on how they thought the average Republican and average Democrat would respond. Consistent with previous research, Republicans scored higher on these measures of motivated social cognition than Democrats. Critically, political stereotypes about Democrats and Republicans mirrored, but exaggerated, the actual differences. Despite an overall tendency of participants to engage in stereotype exaggeration, Democrats engaged in greater stereotype exaggeration compared to Republicans, and partisans (individuals who strongly identified with either party) engaged in greater stereotype exaggeration compared to more moderate party members.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
