Extremism, Power, and the Imagined Basis of Social Conflict

Abstract

There is perhaps no more dan gerous force in social relations than the human mind. People's ca pacities to categorize, interpret, and go beyond the information given readily lead to the stereo typing and dehumanization that escalate and entrench group con flict. In this article, we focus on op posing partisans' tendency to exaggerate their opponents' ex tremism and the magnitude of their conflict. We first present re search documenting this bias, then consider how imagined extremism intensifies social conflicts, and conclude by discussing how parti sans with power judge their con flicts in more biased ways than do partisans without power, but are themselves judged more accu rately.