Theme Panel: Understanding and Correcting Misperceptions

September 10, 2025 APSA Annual Meeting, Theme Panels Comments Off on Theme Panel: Understanding and Correcting Misperceptions

In-Person Created Panel

Participants:

  • (Chair) Brendan Nyhan, Dartmouth College

Session Description:
Recent research into the possible causes of division and disorder has pointed to misperceptions as a possible culprit. Whether focusing on misperceptions about the demographic make-up or policy preferences of out-partisans (e.g., Ahler and Sood 2018; Levendusky and Malhotra 2016) or misperceptions on a range of policy issues (Thorson 2024), false beliefs can distort mass opinion, fuel affective polarization, and even facilitate democratic backsliding (Nyhan 2020; Braley et al. 2023)..

This session seeks to enhance our understanding of misperceptions and their consequences by, first, introducing novel ways of conceptualizing misperceptions and theorizing how corrective interventions can be strengthened. Second, the session highlights research that tests the effectiveness of corrections in reducing false beliefs, issue polarization, and affective polarization across a range of domains. From correcting false beliefs about criminal and welfare policy to misperceptions about norms held by the out-party, the research in this session sheds new light on the role of corrective information in changing attitudes and polarization. In summary, this session helps illuminate the nature of misperceptions and ways to reduce them, thus contributing important insights into interventions that hold promise for reducing division and discord in polarized societies.