Defending The Status Quo

It has been suggested that within social disputes those partisans representing the status quo perceive their conflict less accurately than those seeking change, and that partisans seeking change are stereotyped as extremists. We tested these hypotheses in the context of the "Western Canon" debate which divides partisans, "Revisionists" and "Traditionalists," according to the books that should compose the liberal arts curriculum. We surveyed the attitudes and book preferences of California English professors. Both Revisionists and Traditionalists overestimated the differences in their attitudes and book preferences. Traditionalists, however, were more prone to polarize the two sides' attitudes and to underestimate the book preferences they shared with their opponents, while both sides attributed greater extremism to Revisionists. Discussion focuses on the mechanisms that may account for power-related perceptual biases within social disputes.