The Parties in Our Heads Misperceptions about Party Composition and Their Consequences

• Published in: The Journal of politics Vol. 80; no. 3; pp. 964 - 981
• Main Authors: Ahler, Douglas J., Sood, Gaurav
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago University of Chicago on behalf of the Southern Political Science Association 01.07.2018; University of Chicago Press
• Subjects: Allegiance; Base rates; Bias; Ignorance; LGBTQ people; Partisanship; Perceptions; Political parties; Stereotypes; Supporters; parties; groups; polarization; partisanship; perception

We document a large and consequential bias in how Americans perceive the major political parties: people tend to considerably overestimate the extent to which party supporters belong to party-stereotypical groups. For instance, people think that 32% of Democrats are LGBT (vs. 6% in reality) and 38%...