Day: August 13, 2026

Why do disagreements about vaccines, climate change or elections often feel so personal? Our research suggests it is not simply because other people have different beliefs. It is because we think those beliefs are mistaken.

We are behavioral scientists who study the role of beliefs in politics and everyday life. Our new research finds that people are more disturbed by others’ beliefs when they feel those beliefs are not merely different from their own but are based on incorrect information.

For example, two people may disagree about the ideal level of immigration, but if one believes immigrants commit more crime than U.S.-born residents and the other is convinced the statistics show otherwise, their disagreement becomes a conflict over reality and truth.

That distinction matters because public debate over polarization often starts with a simple idea: People prefer others who think like them – “birds of a feather flock together,” as the saying goes. Social scientists call this belief homophily, and many researchers have studied how these shared beliefs shape friendships, neighborhoods, media habits and political life.

The idea has strong intuitive appeal: People often live near others who share their politics. People also tend to consume news and social media that fit their existing views, a pattern linked to echo chambers and political polarization.

Our research, based on four studies with more than 2,000 U.S. adults, suggests that the story that we and others have formulated is incomplete. People do not react the same way to all disagreements: They are especially bothered when they are convinced that someone is wrong.

Wrong beliefs fuel avoidance

In one study, we asked participants to recall a situation in which another person believed one thing and they believed something else. Some participants described a situation involving different beliefs, while others recalled one with incorrect beliefs. For example, one participant recalled a disagreement about whether couples should live together before marriage, viewing it as a difference in priorities rather than a dispute over reality. By contrast, another participant recalled disagreeing with a friend who believed drinking soda and eating fast food was harmless, a belief the participant considered factually wrong.

Their emotional reactions were dramatically different: Participants who saw the other person’s belief as incorrect reported having felt more disturbed, frustrated and upset than participants who saw the belief as simply different.

In another study, participants first reported their views on divisive topics, such as climate change, capital punishment and policing. Then they saw a hypothetical social media post that opposed their view. The more confident participants were that the author’s belief was incorrect, the more disturbed they felt. They also said they would be more likely to avoid, distrust or block that person. By contrast, being confident that the other person’s belief was simply different – not wrong – did not predict avoidance.

Finally, we gave participants short fictional stories – for example, about a neighbor who believed that a politician was corrupt. All participants read the same basic facts. The only change was how we framed the other person’s beliefs.

We told participants that their fictional neighbor had either different beliefs or incorrect beliefs about the politician’s alleged corruption. Though they were given the same information, people were substantially more disturbed when the other person’s belief was framed as incorrect.

Why false beliefs make people frustrated

Our studies point to several possible reasons for why false beliefs feel so upsetting. One is consequences.

False beliefs can often lead to bad decisions. For example, someone’s incorrect beliefs about vaccines or climate change can affect not only us, personally, but also other people we care about, including, in some cases, the person holding the seemingly false belief.

A second possibility is that false beliefs threaten people’s sense of shared reality. People rely on others to make sense of the world. When someone appears to deny what feels obvious or true, the conflict can feel more disturbing than merely having different perspectives.

A third possibility is that people treat false beliefs as signals about the person holding them. When we are convinced that someone is wrong, we may conclude that they are biased or irrational. Psychologists have described this as a sign of naive realism, the belief that we see the world objectively, while those who disagree with us are distorted by bias or self-interest. That kind of judgment can make a false belief feel socially threatening.

Difference may still matter for close relationships

Our findings do not mean that people are indifferent to differences.

In our social media study, participants were less able to imagine having close relationships, such as family or romantic relationships, with someone whose beliefs differed from theirs, even if they did not consider those beliefs to be false. Shared beliefs and values may matter more when people think about spouses, relatives or close friends than when they think about neighbors, colleagues or strangers online.

But for less intimate relationships, the perception of wrongness was the key predictor of negative feelings and avoidance. People did not want to avoid those who disagreed with them; they wanted to avoid those they believed were mistaken.

This helps explain why some debates become so emotionally intense, especially online. A disagreement about taste or sports may stay harmless, but a disagreement about vaccines, climate change or election integrity can feel different because people often see one side as factually wrong and potentially harmful.

The paradox of fact-based debate

Public discussions often call for more fact-based debate, but we believe such a drive for hard truths may be counterproductive. Facts matter, and empirical evidence should guide debates, but our findings suggest a paradox: When people use facts to defend their preferences, tastes or values, they may turn a disagreement over priorities into a dispute over who is right and who is wrong, potentially turning up the emotional heat.

That shift can make disagreement harder to tolerate. A person can “agree to disagree” about which school policy reflects the right priorities or which candidate best represents their values. It is much harder to agree to disagree when facts are at issue. The nastiness of intellectual disputes, therefore, depends in part on how people frame their positions. Even if the contents of the disagreement are the same, it is very different to say “we disagree” than to say that “you are wrong.”

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Widespread denial accompanied the public exposure of Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse and trafficking of girls and women.

After the U.S. Justice Department released millions of case documents on Epstein in January 2026, billionaires, politicians, heads of state and academics proclaimed their ignorance of Epstein’s global network of sexual exploitation.

Why would so many intelligent and powerful people repeatedly trumpet their lack of awareness, especially after Epstein’s 2008 plea agreement to underage prostitution charges?

And what about all of Epstein’s staffers and business associates who kept quiet about the suspicious behavior they observed?

As a human rights researcher who has conducted genocide research on four continents, I think denials of human rights atrocities can help people understand the denial of crimes like child sexual abuse and trafficking.

Avoiding accountability for atrocities requires two types of denial: by the perpetrator and by the community. It’s easy to understand why mass murderers and child rapists deny their horrific actions. More perplexing is why bystanders, law enforcement, colleagues, family and institutions claim ignorance.

Society understands that staying quiet after witnessing impermissible crimes is a form of complicity. Bystanders are likely to deny an atrocity when acknowledging it requires action, both morally and legally.

As sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel has noted: “Like silence, denial involves active avoidance. Rather than simply failing to notice something, it entails a deliberate effort to refrain from noticing it.”

US and international law

A network of international and domestic laws considers certain crimes so horrific that there are no extenuating circumstances for committing them. Other laws stipulate that everyday observers of certain crimes have a legal responsibility to report them and to protect victims if possible.

The 1987 United Nations convention against torture emphasizes: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war … may be invoked as a justification of torture.” And the 1948 U.N. genocide convention holds all signatory nations responsible for their inaction against genocide.

In the United States, the 1974 Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act mandates that states have provisions requiring certain people – doctors, teachers, clergy and law enforcement – to report known or suspected cases of child abuse.

About a quarter of states go further and stipulate that “all persons who have cause to suspect that any juvenile is abused, neglected, or dependent or has died as the result of maltreatment shall report” to the authorities.

Perpetrator denial

In the context of government human rights abuses, sociologist Stanley Cohen in 2001 classified denial into three strategies: literal, interpretive and implicatory.

With literal denial, Cohen wrote, the perpetrator simply claims the event never happened. If successful, this form of denial makes the problem disappear.

During the U.S. war on terror after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, human rights groups accused the George W. Bush government of torturing detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

Applying Cohen’s typology illuminates how the Bush administration cycled through strategies of denial, beginning with literal denial. Responding to evidence of U.S. torture of detainees in Iraq in 2006, Bush denied the accusations: “This country doesn’t torture; we’re not going to torture.”

After the failure of literal denial, the Justice Department employed interpretive denial, which admits to something having taken place, just not something that rises to the level of a crime. The DOJ redefined torture and referred to acts such as waterboarding – legally classified as torture – as “enhanced interrogation methods.”

Following his guilty plea to soliciting prostitution from a 14-year-old, Epstein used interpretive denial by comparing the severity of his crime to shoplifting: “I’m not a sexual predator,” he said. “I’m an ‘offender.’ It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.”

When interpretive denial fails, perpetrators turn to what Cohen calls implicatory denial. It accepts the facts – torture of detainees, forced expulsions, mass killings – but denies the psychological or moral ramifications that follow.

In his memoirs, Bush did not deny the use of torture; he denied the immorality of the torture. “The choice between security and values was real,” he wrote.

Community denial

Research that I’m currently conducting revises Cohen’s typology to understand why bystanders to crimes like Epstein’s don a veil of ignorance.

Denial of child sexual abuse occurs within a community – a citizenry, a family, a congregation. The community establishes the parameters of morality, the relative power of each member, and which actions constitute crimes.

In cases where accepting the truth has a high communal cost – a reordering of the power structure, more egalitarian institutions, eradication of prejudice or social disgrace – many people calculate that the cost of justice is not worth reordering the structure of privilege from which they benefit.

In the case of institutional abuse, powerful groups, such as the Catholic Church, prioritized the reputation of the institution over the victims.

Much like perpetrators, a community adheres to its preferred version of reality by denying abuse at the literal, interpretive and implicatory levels.

With literal denial, bystanders negate the experience of one particular child. This is so prevalent among mothers of incest victims that the legal community is exploring criminally charging the mothers who fail to protect their children.

Community interpretive denial tells the victim they did not experience what they thought they experienced. This occurred repeatedly for many victims of Larry Nassar, a former physician who sexually assaulted hundreds of gymnasts in the guise of medical treatment.

Gymnast Larissa Boyce described what happened when the then-16-year-old reported Nassar’s abuse to her coach. “She just couldn’t believe that was happening. She said I must be misunderstanding what was going on.”

Community implicatory denial negates the moral implications of the atrocity by blaming the victim for the perpetrator’s actions.

During the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal that erupted in the late 1980s, Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland admitted that sexual activity had taken place between some of his priests and their young parishioners, but he dismissed the notion that the priests were entirely to blame.

“Sometimes not all adolescent victims are so ‘innocent,’” he told The Catholic Herald in 1988. “Some can be sexually very active and aggressive and often quite streetwise.”

Communities blinded by the perpetrator’s stethoscope, billion dollars, clerical collar or Ivy League degree often refuse to acknowledge the stereotypes that protect privileged predators.

And that willful ignorance of child sexual abuse equals complicity. Through denial, members thus absolve themselves for inaction in the face of atrocity.

Sarah K Lischer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation