Perceived Objectivity and Political Polarization: Counterintuitive Findings on Naïve Realism, Willingness to Compromise, and Positivity Felt towards the Opposition regarding Political Views

Abstract

Naïve realism—the perspective that one sees reality “objectively” and as it truly is—goes hand in hand with political polarization: both sides believe themselves to be right, and the other to be mistaken or biased, which seems to hinder conflict resolution regarding political issues. The present research examines the four main variables of naïve realism, extremity of political views, willingness to compromise, and positivity or negativity felt towards the opposition, identifying complex relationships between them. Findings suggest that extremity of political views and naïve realism are remarkably intertwined and positively correlated with one another, but that while increased extremity of political views predicts decreased willingness to compromise and positivity towards the opposition, increased naïve realism predicts increases for both of these, providing a counterintuitive paradox between the four variables. Other variables, including race, gender, and order in which questions are presented are shown to affect the outcomes of these variables. While we discuss and propose some potential mechanism to explain these intriguing results, further research is warranted to study the unreliability of naïve realists in self-judgments, as well as the effects of priming and race on the variables of willingness to compromise and positivity felt towards the opposition.