Political Violence and Inaccurate Metaperceptions

The January 6th, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, which left five dead and hundreds injured, was a stark demonstration that political violence remains a clear and present threat to democratic institutions. Perhaps because of the rarity of such events in the United States’ near past, recent scholarship on political and intergroup conflict has focused largely on topics of polarization and attitude extremism rather than political violence. It is in this social and scientific context that Mernyk, Pink, Druckman, & Willer provide timely and compelling evidence that inaccurate meta-perceptions serve as a psychological driver of support for and willingness to engage in political violence, and that correcting such inaccurate meta-perceptions can durably attenuate partisans’ positive attitudes toward political violence.