Politics is a firestorm, sometimes literally. In 2023, someone in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts poured gasoline on a pro-Trump sign nailed to a tree and set light on it. Three years earlier in the same area, a 49-year-old Trump supporter started a great flame after lighting some hay bales emblazoned with a pro-Biden sign. This bucolic area of Massachusetts is not known for arsonists, but both here and everywhere else in the world, people seem to be consumed by hatred.
And it’s not just America where liberals and conservatives seem to detest each other. A British survey in 2017 found that both Conservative and Labor supporters viewed the other side as far less intelligent, open-minded and honest than their own. Only 24% and 19%, respectively, would be happy for their child to marry someone from the other side of the ideological divide.
But is this hatred as intense as it seems? And is it in fact hate, or something else entirely?
What is true is that our political opponents appear to hate us; our “metaperceptions” of it are very negative. Let me explain: perceptions are what you think of the other side, and metaperceptions are what you think the other side of you thinks. Most importantly, research shows that our metaperceptions are extremely miscalibrated. In other words, we believe that they hate us much more than they do. In one studythe hypothesized dislike was exaggerated by about 25 points on a 100-point scale. Found another one that hate is overrated by up to 300%.
Here’s why it’s such a problem: we like those who seem to like us, and tend to hate those who seem to hate us, even if they don’t. This is the principle of reciprocity, and it is also the reason why people are willing to engage in anti-democratic practices. Evidence shows that the majority of people on the left and right are in favor of transparent elections and, for example, against gerrymandering, but count people they she values these principles up to 88% more. This spells trouble because when you believe your opponents are breaking the rules, you become willing to do the same.
Fortunately, there is a way to break that cycle. When people their inaccurate metaperceptions corrected, they show less partisan hostility. Likewise, remind them that their opponents support democracy lead them to affirm their own commitment to democratic norms, and express less support for anti-democratic candidates.
While it is clear that we often overestimate the amount of political hatred in the world, it is certainly the case that people on different sides often like each other strongly, and will sometimes lash out. The other question then is why?
One important reason is the setting of politics and elections, which are often a zero-sum game. When the system means your win is my loss, naturally people are going to become antagonistic. Of course, not all rivalry is bad. Athletes perform better when they compete against people or teams they have animosity towards. But politics is not the same as sports. The whole point of sports is competition, and while elections are also competitive, in the intervening years we all have to live together in the same society, ruled by the same parties.
Another reason we dislike our political opponents is because we tend to think they are immoral. Along with colleagues, I asked liberals and conservatives what they believed each group thought about obvious mistakes. surprisingly, we discovered that people believed that 15% of their opponents viewed child sexual exploitation as acceptable. In fact, almost everyone condemns it.
It is also possible to see people on the other side as evil because they endorse policies that cause harm. In reality, everyone policies cause some harm, whether they are taxes, transportation, immigration, or drugs. Every law or initiative involves messy trade-offs: costs and benefits that help some and cause suffering for others. Unfortunately, research shows that people believe their political opponents these unwelcome costs contemplated and enjoy the problems they cause.
The key to understanding all this lies in our distant past. Although we often think of ourselves as apex predators, sitting at the top of the food chain, our ancestors lived in constant fear – more prey than predator. For the millions of years during which our minds evolved, we were chased and hunted and terrorized by big cats, eagles and packs of wolves. And even though we now live in relative safety, we can’t shake that pervasive sense of threat.
With this knowledge about human nature, we can better understand why those people in rural Massachusetts set fire to political signs. They weren’t bent on senseless destruction as much as they were scared, worried about their future and the future of the nation if the other side won. Of course, feeling afraid does not allow violence or arson. It doesn’t justify, but it can help explain.
An environment that made us less afraid would clearly help. Unfortunately, there are many political actors who are determined to take advantage of our evolved fear, and stoke our sense of threat to gain advantage for themselves. We have to try to stick to reality: “they” don’t hate you as much as you think. They may be willing to do harm – but mainly on the basis of reciprocity. They think so your side is the one that embraces chaos and destruction.
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The solution to this mutual misperception is to show each other that this is not the case, and to explain how our political beliefs are grounded in feelings of fear and concern. Work we did shows that people are more willing to respect and engage with opponents who share personal experiences of suffering and concerns about what might happen to them in the future.
So the next time you’re talking to someone who disagrees with you, spend less time accusing them of burning it all down and more time helping them understand your beliefs as well as your fears – which , in essence, will probably be similar to theirs.
Kurt Gray is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Further reading
Why we are polarized by Ezra Klein (Profile, £10.99)
The Power of Us: Using Our Shared Identities for Personal and Collective Success by Jay Van Bavel, Dominic J Packer (Wildfire, £12.99)
How Civil Wars Begin: And How to Stop Them by Barbara F Walter (Penguin, £10.99).
