How the Basic Morality Bias Widens Our Political Divide

Few areas of social life are as hostile and divisive as politics. Attitudes and opinions are full of rage, in-group favoritism, out-group hate, deception, misinformation, hypocrisy, arrogance, cynicism, corruption, intolerance, self-interest, and opportunism. And that was just the last presidential debate.

One of the most common harmful habits in political disagreements is the tendency to assume bad intentions. Think of any highly contentious political issue — e.g. abortion, gun laws, immigration — and you’ll find large numbers of people on both sides assuming the other side is pure evil. Once you assume evil intentions, it’s incredibly difficult to have a conversation or make progress since nobody wants to bargain with the devil.

I’ve previously written about how even extreme conspiracy theorists can have their minds changed by rational conversations. So let’s go one level deeper here and talk about a widespread psychological bias that prevents people from having productive conversations with each other in the first place.

You’d think it would be easy to get on the same page about the most obvious moral questions like whether it’s ok to abuse children or whether wrongful imprisonment is acceptable. However, studies are showing that people heavily overestimate their political rivals’ willingness to…