The people who took part in riots and counterprotests in England and Northern Ireland this summer are probably very confident that they know the views and beliefs of those they oppose. But they are probably wrong. Our new research shows we struggle to understand the minds of people who differ from us.

People categorise each other socially. Those we think of as similar to ourselves are part of what social scientists call our “in-group” while those we think of as different are deemed an “out-group”. These differences can be based on race, religion, nationality, political beliefs, sexual orientation or class, to name a few.

We understand that there are lots of different types of people with varying beliefs in our in-group. For example, a white person knows that not all white people are alike. Yet people tend to think all members of an out-group are the same, with similar beliefs and views. What’s more, people are often wrong about what these are.

Our research tested this by asking 256 people from the US to predict the social and political beliefs of others. Of these participants, there were 119 men and 137 women, with an average age of 45, and the group was split evenly between those with left- and right-leaning political views. We presented participants with statements such as “immigrants are good for society” and asked them to what extent they agreed. We then showed them the responses of other people who had been asked the same question.

If the participant said they strongly agreed that immigrants are good for society, they would be presented with someone who said they strongly disagreed with this. This would make them out-group to the participant.

Now aware that the other person disagreed with them on one belief, we would then ask them to predict this other person’s opinion on a different topic, such as “everyone should have access to legal abortion” or “it is right that same-sex marriage is now legal and acceptable”. The participant might assume that people who are anti-immigration are also anti-abortion or against same-sex marriage.

We asked people to repeat this task with various beliefs for both in-group and out-group members.

Each time someone predicted what the other person thought, we asked them to state how confident they were that their prediction was correct on a scale from “not at all” to “extremely confident”. We found that people were consistently very confident that their predictions were accurate (75% confident) but, for out-group members, they were wrong more than 60% of the time.

We then assessed how well people’s confidence was aligned with their accuracy. For in-group members who were asked to predict the views of other in-group members, their confidence was well placed: the more confident they were, the more accurate they were. It was a different story for their prediction of the views of out-group members: the more confident they were, the more likely it was that they were wrong.

This shows that people think they are much better at understanding out-groups than they actually are.

Generally, people are better at understanding in-group members because we interact with them more. We build up a good understanding of the range of people within our in-group, learning that they are all individuals, differing in their thoughts, beliefs and views. We are confident we understand them and, because of our experience with them, we usually can.

In contrast, our understanding of out-group members is often limited to what we’ve heard about them on the news, via word of mouth or on social media. If this information is overly simplistic or not accurate, then much like other disinformation, it gives rise to commonly held misconceptions about the out-group and the views they hold.

We apply the understanding we have of a few out-group members to everyone in the group, meaning we misunderstand a lot of people, but we think we understand them very well.

The consequences of this are, unfortunately, well known and serious. People value the lives of out-group members less. People are less likely to help out-group members as distrust, dislike and hostility towards them increases. People also become less willing to engage with out-groups, preferring not to work with, live near, or even sit near an out-group member. As societies become more polarised in this way, there are fewer chances for incorrect views to be challenged and corrected.

Understanding others better

We conducted a second experiment to try to find a way to counter these incorrect assumptions. This time, we told people whether their predictions were right or wrong.

Encouragingly, we found that by making people aware of their incorrect assumptions about out-group members, people started making better, more accurate predictions. They also became more aware of which people they were more or less likely to be able to understand.

It seems that making people aware of the real views and beliefs of out-group members can change how they think about them.

This is why it is so critical that people are exposed to the views of a diverse range of people. Hearing their stories and gaining insight into who they are as individuals – their personalities, beliefs, desires and emotions – helps us understand that, like our in-group, the out-group is made up of many different types of people. Over time, this makes it more likely that we will treat them with humanity.