“Ditto Heads”: Do Conservatives Perceive Greater Consensus Within Their Ranks Than Liberals?

In three studies,we examined (a) whether conservatives possess a stronger desire to share reality than liberals and are therefore more likely to perceive consensus with politically like-minded others even for non-political judgments and,if so,(b) whether motivated perceptions of consensus would give conservatives an edge in progressing toward collective goals. in study 1,participants estimated ingroup consensus on non-political judgments. conservatives perceived more ingroup consensus than liberals,regardless of the amount of actual consensus. the desire to share reality mediated the relationship between ideology and perceived ingroup consensus. study 2 replicated these results and demonstrated that perceiving ingroup consensus predicted a sense of collective efficacy in politics. in study 3,experimental manipulations of affiliative motives eliminated ideological differences in the desire to share reality. a sense of collective efficacy predicted intentions to vote in a major election. implications for the attainment of shared goals are discussed. © 2014 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.