Social Projection in Politicians’ Perceptions of Public Opinion

Flashcards based on lecture notes about social projection in politicians’ perceptions of public opinion.

What is social projection in the context of politicians' perceptions of public opinion?

Politicians tend to assume their own preferences are shared by voters when estimating voter opinions.

In which four countries was data collected from politicians for this study?

Belgium, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland.

Where is social projection strongest?

Politicians' estimations of the opinions of their partisan electorate.

How do elected politicians compare to ordinary citizens in avoiding erroneous projection?

Elected politicians are not better at avoiding erroneous projection than ordinary citizens in three of the four countries studied.

Why do elected representatives' public opinion perceptions matter?

Elected representatives' public opinion perceptions matter because they can influence policy decisions and how they communicate with citizens.

What does research suggest about politicians' perceptions of voter preferences?

Politicians often hold inaccurate perceptions of what voters want.

What does the projection account suggest about politicians' perceptions?

Politicians tend to let their own opinion affect their perception of others’ opinions.

Which voter group do politicians mostly consider to be the group they primarily want to represent?

Politicians mostly consider the party electorate to be the group they primarily want to represent.

What is the first hypothesis of the study?

There is more projection in perceptions of the own electorate than in perceptions of the general public or the electoral district.

What is social projection?

The tendency to perceive one’s own properties as being prevalent in the group one belongs to.

What does psychological research suggest about projection?

Psychological research early on confirmed that projection frequently occurs in human perception and happens largely automatically.

Does 'projecting' always mean politicians make incorrect inferences?

That politicians are 'projecting' does not necessarily mean that they make incorrect inferences about others.

Projection induces what when politicians are incongruent with the public, their electorate, or district?

Erroneous views of what voters prefer.

What does projection foster when politicians’ opinions are congruent with voters?

Projection fosters public opinion perceptions that are accurate.

What happened after Pereira (2020) warning politicians of projection?

Warning politicians of projection reduced the amount of projection in their estimations yet did not make them any more accurate in the end because they started assuming dissimilarity when there actually was congruence