Fictional heroes seen as political allies and villains as opponents

People feel that Harry Potter, Spiderman and Gandalf will vote in the same way, while Darth Wadar, Kruella de will and Joffree Barathion will vote for rival party.

New research from the University of Southampton shows how people in the UK and US believe that they admire fictional characters, they will share their voting preferences, while what they dislike will vote in another way.

paper “Heroes and Villain: Inspired Projection of Political Identity” Is published in Political science research and method,

Researchers also found that one in six people recalled the party affiliation of a charitable or corrupt politician in a news story, yet it was not known. Then, people thought that ‘good’ politicians were from his party, while ‘bad’ was from a party that they oppose.

Researchers say that this political projection may promote polarization in politics.

“If we see the ‘villain’ related to the other side, we also add more and more negative characteristics with that group,” Dr. Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte, under the leadership of a study from Southampton University. “This is not only bad news for polarization, but also makes us more easily susceptible to wrong information that confirms existing prejudices that we keep about voters of some parties.”

In the first of the two studies, researchers at Southampton University and Vienna University surveyed 3,200 people from each country in UK and US -1,600.

In a series of questions, people were presented with two familiar characters of the popular franchise, including Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Games of Thrones and Star Wars.

He was asked which character he thought that there was more likely to vote labor or conservative (in the UK), or Democrats or Republican (in the US). The answers were cross-refered with information about the political inclination and affiliation of the respondents.

People were 20% more likely to project their politics on a hero than a villain. This effect was equally strong when handing over opposition politics to a villain, 20% more likely with the respondents that a villain would vote more than the opposing party.

In the second study, around 1,600 people in the UK were shown one of the two opposite news stories about a local councilor – one in which the councilor donated money to a local donation and the other in which he would steal money from donations.

The respondents were then asked some questions about the story read by him, one of which a party was represented about the party – the disappearance in both stories.

One of the about six people recalled ‘remembered’ that the councilor represented the councilor, with a strong tendency to see the charitable donor as a member of his party, and the thief as a member of his rival party.

When people said that they did not know or did not remember, the information was asked to see, they did the same with biased lines.

Dr. Turnbull-Dugarte said, “People believe that the heroes are more likely to belong to their group, but cannot accept a ratio. The respondents were more consistent as being related to another group when identifying a villain.

“In a context where polarization is high, the projection seems more about defining who we are, who are we.”

The tendency to see heroes in his favor and the other was more among those with strong political identity. People of political leftists were also more inclined to the right than those people.

Dr. Turnbull-Dugarte said, “To overcome the growing political division, we need to identify the trend to project partners and villainy symptoms with biased lines and recognize that reality is always more complex and fine, which believes us than our prejudices.”