
17/03/2025
New Study Reveals How Fans Project Their Political Beliefs onto Heroes and Villains
People think that Harry Potter, Spiderman and Gandalf would vote the same way they do, whereas Darth Vader, Cruella de Vill and Joffrey Baratheon would vote for the rival party.
New research from the University of Southampton, published today [17 March] in the journal Political Science Research & Method, shows how people in the UK and USA believe that fictional characters they admire would share their voting preferences, while those they dislike would vote the other way.
The researchers also found that around one in six people recalled the party affiliation of a charitable or corrupt politician in a news story, despite it not being revealed. Again, people thought the ‘good’ politician was from their party, while the ‘bad’ one was from the party they oppose.
Researchers say this political projection could be fuelling polarisation in politics.
“If we see ‘villains’ as belonging to the other side, then we also tend to associate more and more negative attributes with that group,” says Dr Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte, lead of the study from the University of Southampton. “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.”
Link to study: https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2025.10