Liberals may not be as unique as they believe

A new study has said that liberals "underestimate" the amount of actual agreement among those who share their ideology, while conservatives "overestimate" intra-group agreement.

These findings may help to explain differences in how political groups and movements, like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, gain traction on the national stage:

Psychological scientist Chadly Stern of New York University said that the Tea Party movement developed a succinct set of goals in its incipient stages and effectively mobilized its members toward large-scale social change quite quickly.

He said that in contrast, despite its popularity, the liberal Occupy Wall Street movement struggled to reach agreement on their collective mission and ultimately failed to enact large-scale social change.

Stern, with co-authors Tessa West and Peter Schmitt, recruited almost 300 hundred participants to complete an online survey.

The participants read political statements (e.g., "In general, I support labor unions,") and non-political statements (e.g., "I enjoy coffee") and were asked to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with each statement. They were also asked to indicate how much others of the same political persuasion would support their own attitudes - a measure of perceived in-group consensus.

Liberals showed what the researchers call "truly false uniqueness," perceiving their beliefs as more divergent from the beliefs of other liberals than they actually were. Moderates and conservatives, on the other hand, showed evidence of "truly false consensus," perceiving their beliefs to be more similar to those of other members of their political group than they actually were.

Data from a second study suggest that the relationship is driven by participants' desire to feel unique: Liberals reported a stronger desire for uniqueness than did moderates or conservatives.

The study has been published in the journal of the Association for Psychological Science.