They Think Like Me: How Voters Project their Own Opinion on What They Think the Others Think

They think like me. How voters project their own opinion on what they think the others think Voters have their own opinion with regard to policies. And, they have a perception of what the other people are thinking about the same policies. This study deals with the connection between both and more in particular tendency of people to overestimate the agreement between their own opinions and those of the other people. In other words, the study deals with the phenomenon whereby people project their own opinion on the voters at large. The perception of what the others are thinking is an important factor affecting to what extent people do (dare to) voice their own opinion in public and it also matters for how people evaluate the responsiveness of the political system and for their satisfaction with democracy. Projection probably is ubiquitous, that is at least what psychologists say. The question the paper deals with is who are the voters who, more than other people, project their own preferences on the others. Additionally, the study not only looks at individual differences but also at issue differences. On some issues, people project more than with regard to other issues. We expect that people with strong opinions are projecting more than those with weak opinions and the same applies to those with strong interest in politics. At the issue level, we expect the projection phenomenon to more outspoken with regard to salient than with regard to non-salient issues. To investigate this, a citizen survey has been conducted in Belgium between February and March 2018 (N=4,760) in which a full question module gauges people’s own position of different issues and their assessment of the general public opinion. A similar questionnaire is currently being conducted in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands allowing for a comparative analysis.