Harry Potter might be a Democrat or a labor supporter, and Darth Vader would definitely vote for a Republican or a conservative, at least, if you agree with the left side of the political scope, you might believe it. Instead, if you lean to the right, expect those living boys to vote for conservatives while Sith Lords are in line with the liberals.
This trend projects our own political preferences onto fictional characters we admire and assigns opposing views to villains we despise – already in a new study published today in the journal Research and Methods of Political Science.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Southampton and the University of Vienna, found that people have always believed that heroes would vote like they did, and that villains would support their political rivals. This pattern of partisan predictions could lead to political polarization in the UK and the US.
“If we see the ‘villain’ as the other end, we also tend to connect more and more negative attributes to this group,” explains Dr. Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte, who leads the study. “This is not only bad news for polarization, but also makes us more susceptible to misleading, which confirms our existing bias against voters in some parties.”
The team surveyed 3,200 participants, 1,600 from the UK and the US, covering which parties various fictional characters might support which party. The roster of characters includes familiar faces from major franchises such as Marvel, Disney, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Star Wars.
The results show that participants are 20% more likely to project their own politics onto the hero. When it comes to villains, it is equally possible (and 20%) that people say these roles will vote for the other party rather than their own party.
These findings are correct, whether participants are allocating labor/conservative affiliations in the UK or Democratic/Republican preferences in the US.
In another experiment, about 1,600 UK participants read one of two news reports about local consultants, a positive story of officials donating to charity or a negative account describing the misappropriation of public funds by the same charity. Although none of the stories mention the political affiliation of MPs, about one in six respondents mistakenly “remember” this detail, strongly inclined to recall charitable MPs belonging to their preferred party, and corrupt parties are members of their political opposition.
When participants who admit that they don’t know the answer are asked to guess, they follow the same pattern – assigning their own parties and opposition to villains.
Partisan predictions are the most powerful among individuals with strong political identities. The researchers also pointed out that the political left showed a stronger tendency towards this projection than the ones on the right.
“People think that heroes are more likely to belong to their group, but the acceptable proportions may not,” noted Dr. Turnbull-Dugarte. “When a villain is identified as another group, the consistency of respondents is to be consistent. In a case of high polarization, the projection seems to be more about defining who we are, not who we are.”
The implications of whether Gandalf supports conservative fiscal policy or whether Cruella de Vil will support progressive health care reform go beyond popular culture debate. This trend to bear the worst political opponents can help explain why cross-party dialogue is becoming increasingly difficult and why misinformation can spread so easily when confirming existing biases.
Political psychologists have long studied how partisan identities shape ideas, but this study provides concrete evidence of how these biases manifest in daily thinking. The findings show that our political tribes depend not only on the definition of policy preferences, but also on cultural associations and moral assessments that may be deeply entrenched.
The study comes a time when political polarization in the UK and the US continues to intensify, with the upcoming elections between the two countries likely to emphasize these divisions further.
Dr. Turnbull-Dugarte concluded: “To overcome the increasing political divisions, we need to recognize the tendency to project the characteristics of heroes and evil along partisan lines, and to recognize that reality is always more complex and nuanced than our prejudices.”
So next time you find yourself sure your favorite superhero will vote, remember that fans in every political field are thinking about the exact same thing – they may also be just projecting bias.
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