Augment Political Projection with Introjection

Valuable for the political longevity of an elected official is the ability to assess their voters’ sentiments about issues important to the voters. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the politician agrees with the voters’ views. The politician could recognize the divergence and work to change the voters’ opinions. But anything that disrupts an accurate reading of the constituents’ preferences is a danger. This danger arises because politicians might mistakenly assume that the views they hold are also held by the voters. This was seen in a study by researchers at University of Antwerp, Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Basel, University of Konstanz, University of Geneva, University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, and University of Amsterdam.
     The psychological process responsible for the error is social projection. We all tend to assume that our likes—and to a lesser extent, our dislikes—are shared by those whose opinions we value. Projection generally operates automatically below the level of conscious awareness and is a prevailing human characteristic. The research indicates that politicians are no better than other citizens in avoiding the biases of projection.
     The dangers of projection for an elected official are lessened by the reality that generally the politician does reflect the sentiments of the voters. That’s largely why they were elected, after all. Still, staying aware of possible misperceptions, especially in the face of cultural changes, is valuable. The studies concluded that projection by the politician is stronger toward the partisan supporters of the politician than toward the broader electorate in the politician’s geographic district. If the ground of public opinion shifts, a legislator who is projecting might fail to sense and respond to the changes soon enough.
     Perhaps surprisingly, substantially increasing sensitivity to the bias of projection risks making things worse. The researchers report on a prior study showing how such acute awareness led to politicians then too often mistakenly assuming their policy positions diverged from those of the people who had voted them into office.
     A better remedy is using an awareness of projection to motivate continuing information exchange between a politician and the electorate. A counterpart to projection is the psychological process of introjection, which consists of incorporating the perspectives of others into our own thinking. It’s harder for people to engage in introjection than in projection, but such incorporation of voter opinions on pressing policy issues is necessary for prevailing as an elected official.

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