Other people's views of reality, especially politics, can seem alien to us.

Evolutionary psychology holds clues to why people can perceive identical information radically differently.

Group identity, and unconsious needs for consonant beliefs about that identity, can drive our perceptions.

If you’re like me, you have friends or family members that don’t seem to inhabit the same planet that you do.

Despite being as educated as you, as intelligent as you, as experienced as you, with the same strong moral compass as you, some people close to you simply don’t perceive the political world the way you do.

If you are sitting with a friend watching news coverage of events like Jan 6, the Epstein files, the war with Iran or the latest political scandal, based upon your politics, the two of you might have entirely different takeaways from the same information. An event that is an obvious political witch hunt to you could look like powerful evidence of misconduct to your friend—or vice versa.

It might seem that modern political disagreements are rooted in contemporary events, but evolutionary psychology suggests that the origins of widely diverging views of reality go back much farther...

...to the stone age when homo sapiens lived in small groups of hunter gatherers.

Why our ancient brains think maintaining “tribal” identity is so important

Perception of politically charged news is driven by our individual politics, which are in turn part of our larger group identity (e.g. political party, race,........

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