Britons believe Harry Potter, Spider-Man and Gandalf would vote for the same party as themselves - but Darth Vader and Cruella de Vil wouldn't!
People in the UK believe that Harry Potter, Spider-Man and Gandalf would vote for the same party as themselves, while Darth Vader, Cruella de Vil and Joffrey Baratheon would vote for a political rival, according to new research.
Researchers from University of Southampton say this tendency for the public to project their views on to others is 'fuelling polarisation in politics'.
As well as fictional characters, the survey found that when they are told of news stories of charitable and corrupt politicians, people tended to think that the 'good' politician was from the party that they support, while the 'bad' one was from the party they oppose.
Dr Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte, of the University of Southampton, said: 'If we see 'villains' as belonging to the other side, then we also tend to associate more and more negative attributes with that group.
'This is not only bad news for polarisation, but also makes us more easily susceptible to misinformation that confirms the existing biases we hold about the voters of certain parties.'
In the first of two studies, researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of Vienna surveyed 3,200 people in the UK and US.
The participants were asked which party they thought characters from popular franchises including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Games of Thrones and Star Wars, would support.
In the UK they were asked if the characters were more likely to vote Labour or Conservative and Democrat or Republican in the US, with their answers cross-referenced with the respondents' own political leanings.
People believe that literary heroes such as Harry Potter would vote for the same party as them
Spider-man is also considered a fictional character who would vote in favour with the masses
Gandalf, from the popular book series Lord of the Rings, is also thought to vote the same way as those who were surveyed
People believe that classic villains such as Darth Vader and Cruella de Vil would vote for a political rival
The researchers for the study published in the journal Political Science Research and Method found that people were 20 per cent more likely to project their own politics onto a hero than a villain.
The respondents were also 20 per cent more likely to say a villain would vote for the opposing party than their own.
In the second study, 1,600 people in the UK were shown one of two contrasting news stories about a local councillor - one in which the councillor donated money to a local charity and another in which they had stolen money from the charity.
The results showed that about one in six people falsely remembered which party the councillor represented, with a 'strong tendency' to see the charitable donor as a member of their party, and the thief as a member of their rival party.
Dr Turnbull-Dugarte said: 'People believe heroes are more likely to belong to their group but can accept a proportion might not. Respondents were much more consistent when identifying a villain as belonging to the other group.
'In a context where polarisation is high, projection appears to be more about defining who we are not, than who we are.'
He added that the tendency to see heroes on their side and villains on the other was greater amongst those with stronger political identities with those on the political left more inclined to do so than those on the right.
Dr Turnbull-Dugarte added: 'To overcome increasing political division, we need to recognise this tendency to project heroic and villainous traits along partisan lines and recognise that reality is always more complex and nuanced than our biases would have us believe.'
