Are They Evil or Just Mistaken? Attribution Patterns in a Multiparty Democracy

Pre-Analysis Plan: Are They Evil or Just Mistaken? Attribution Patterns in a Multiparty Democracy Date: January 2026 Abstract This pre-analysis plan outlines an experimental study examining how Dutch citizens explain political outgroup beliefs. While affective polarization is well-documented, we know less about its cognitive foundations: Do people attribute outgroup positions to moral failings (they're evil) or epistemic limitations (they're uninformed/unintelligent)? We employ a survey experiment combining closed-ended measures with open-ended responses analyzed through computational text analysis. Participants evaluate five political parties (VVD, D66, PVV, GL/PvdA, Denk) on affective measures and explain why these groups hold their beliefs. Our between-subjects experimental manipulation tests whether priming imagined individuals and personal connections moderates these attributions. In the priming conditions, participants first reflect on people they know from these groups before responding. We hypothesize that priming reduces moralized attributions and increases epistemic attributions. Secondary hypotheses examine asymmetries in attribution patterns, and the relationship between attribution types and affective polarization. This research contributes to understanding whether polarization stems from viewing others as evil versus mistaken—a distinction with profound implications for democratic discourse and potential interventions. 1. Introduction 1.1 The Attribution Problem in Polarized Societies Democratic societies face a critical question: When citizens disagree, do they see their opponents as morally corrupt or merely mistaken? This distinction matters profoundly for the possibility of productive political dialogue, compromise, and democratic stability. If citizens believe their opponents hold different views because they are fundamentally evil or selfish, bridging divides becomes nearly impossible. However, if they attribute disagreement to lack of information or different life experiences, pathways for persuasion and understanding remain open. The Netherlands presents a particularly compelling context for this research. With its fragmented party system featuring over a dozen parties in parliament, Dutch citizens must navigate complex coalitions and multiple outgroups simultaneously. Unlike two-party systems where polarization occurs along a single dominant axis, the Dutch context involves cross-cutting cleavages: economic left-right divisions, cultural progressive-conservative tensions, and religious-secular divides. This complexity may produce different attribution patterns than found in more bipolar political systems. 1.2 Building on Hartman et al. (2023) Recent work by Hartman et al. (2023) in the United States found that attribution of unintelligence rather than immorality drives perceptions of political groups. This challenges conventional wisdom about the "moralization" of politics and suggests that epistemic attributions may be more psychologically fundamental to intergroup conflict than previously thought. However, several questions remain: Generalizability: Do these patterns hold in multi-party systems with different political cultures? Mechanism: What drives people to make dispositional versus epistemic attributions? Effect: What is the relation between attribution types and affective polarization? Malleability: Can attribution patterns be shifted through intervention? 1.3 The Personal Connection Hypothesis Intergroup contact theory, one of psychology's most robust findings, demonstrates that personal relationships reduce prejudice (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). We extend this logic to attribution patterns. Knowing someone personally from an outgroup may fundamentally alter how we explain their beliefs. Rather than abstract category-based reasoning ("they believe X because their type is Y"), personal knowledge enables concrete, individualized explanations ("they believe X because of their specific experiences"). This shift from abstract to concrete thinking has profound implications. Construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) demonstrates that abstract thinking tends to emphasize dispositional factors (character traits, moral qualities), while concrete thinking highlights situational factors and individual circumstances. By priming participants to think about imagined or actual people they know, we may shift attribution patterns from moralized to more epistemic explanations. 2. Theoretical Framework 2.1 Attribution Theory in Intergroup Contexts 2.1.1 The Fundamental Attribution Error and Intergroup Bias Attribution theory, pioneered by Heider (1958) and refined by Weiner (1985), examines how people explain behavior and outcomes. The fundamental attribution error—the tendency to overemphasize dispositional factors while underestimating situational influences—becomes particularly pronounced in intergroup contexts (Pettigrew, 1979). When explaining outgroup behavior, people show an "ultimate attribution error": negative outgroup behaviors are attributed to stable dispositions, while positive behaviors are explained away as exceptions or situational demands. This bias extends to belief attribution. When outgroup members hold different views, ingroup members tend to attribute these differences to character flaws (dispositional attributions) or deficits in cognition or experiences (epistemic attributions). This dispositional bias serves multiple psychological functions: it maintains positive distinctiveness for the ingroup, provides a sense of predictability and control, and justifies existing social arrangements (Hewstone, 1990). 2.1.2 Types of Attributions Dispositional Attributions locate the cause of beliefs in character or moral qualities. These attributions imply stable, internal qualities that are difficult to change and carry strong evaluative components. From a social identity perspective (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), dispositional attributions maximize intergroup differentiation on dimensions that favor the ingroup. By attributing outgroup beliefs to moral failings, ingroup members can maintain moral superiority—a particularly valuable form of positive distinctiveness. Epistemic Attributions locate the cause in knowledge or cognitive factors. While still internal, these attributions are potentially changeable through education or information. Research on naïve realism (Ross & Ward, 1996) suggests people believe they see the world objectively and those who disagree must be uninformed, irrational, or biased. This epistemic superiority allows for the possibility of conversion through enlightenment, maintaining a paternalistic rather than antagonistic stance toward outgroups. 2.2 The Dutch Political Context 2.2.1 Fragmentation and Cross-Cutting Cleavages The Netherlands' proportional representation system has produced one of Europe's most fragmented party systems. Unlike majoritarian democracies where polarization typically occurs along a single dominant dimension, Dutch politics features multiple, partially overlapping divisions (Pellikaan et al., 2003). The traditional left-right economic dimension intersects with a progressive-conservative cultural dimension, creating four distinct quadrants rather than two poles. This complexity has important implications for attribution patterns. In a two-party system, outgroup homogeneity effects might lead to uniform attributions about "the other side." In the Dutch context, citizens must maintain cognitive representations of multiple outgroups with varying degrees of distance and overlap. This cognitive complexity might promote more nuanced, epistemic attributions—or conversely, might lead to simplified dispositional attributions as a cognitive shortcut. 2.2.2 Pillarization Legacy and Tolerance Norms The Netherlands' history of pillarization (verzuiling)—where society was organized into distinct religious and ideological pillars—created a unique political culture of accommodation and tolerance (Lijphart, 1968). While formal pillarization ended in the 1960s, its legacy persists in norms of tolerance and coalition governance. In a study comparing the Netherlands to 32 other nations, the Netherlands scored among the lowest countries in norm tightness (Gelfand et al., 2011). This means that compared to the US, Dutch citizens are more tolerant of deviant behavior and less strict in abiding to norms. Spanish citizens indicated social norm tightness comparable to that in the US, and still below average in the intercountry comparison. These loose cultural norms might suppress explicit dispositional attributions, leading Dutch and Spanish citizens to favor epistemic explanations for disagreement. However, recent developments challenge these tolerance norms. The rise of populist parties, debates over immigration and Islam, and increasing affective polarization (Harteveld, 2021) suggest that Dutch exceptionalism may be eroding. This tension between historical tolerance norms and contemporary polarization makes the Netherlands an ideal site for studying attribution patterns. 2.3 Contact Theory and Construal Level 2.3.1 From Prejudice Reduction to Attribution Change Intergroup contact theory demonstrates that personal relationships with outgroup members reduce prejudice through multiple mechanisms: anxiety reduction, empathy enhancement, and knowledge acquisition (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). We propose that contact also changes attribution patterns. Personal relationships provide individuating information that challenges group-level stereotypes and dispositional attributions. When we know someone personally, we have access to their life story, their reasoning processes, and their values. This rich information makes it harder to dismiss their beliefs as simply stemming from moral failings or stupidity. Instead, we can see how their experiences and circumstances shaped their worldview. T