POWER, EMOTION, AND JUDGMENTAL ACCURACY IN SOCIAL-CONFLICT - MOTIVATING THE COGNITIVE MISER

This investigation examined whether ideological opponents' emotion and relative power in a conflict would influence the accuracy with which they judge their own side's and their opponents' attitudes. Based on a ccounts linking power and emotion to perceptual vigilance, we proposed that opposing partisans will be prone to stereotype their opponents a s extremists, as the result of a heuristic, effort-saving strategy, un less motivated by lower relative power or increased emotion to make mo re accurate judgments. We predicted that members of powerful groups wo uld judge the views of other groups inaccurately, that all groups woul d have inaccurate views of less powerful groups, and that high levels of negative emotion with regard to the conflict would be associated wi th more accurate judgments. Two studies yielded certain findings consi stent with these predictions. In Study 1, powerful majority partisans were less accurate judges but more accurately judged than less powerfu l minority partisans across two social issues. Study 2 focused on two activist groups embroiled in a conflict over status and funding within the university setting, the power being held a Gay Pride group. Consi stent with hypotheses, a self-reported sense of power and reduced nega tive emotion were both associated with reduced judgmental accuracy. Di scussion focused on the underlying mechanisms that might account for t he effects of power and emotion upon social judgment and the social im plications of these asymmetries in judgmental accuracy.