Social projection and political behaviour in low-information environments

Abstract Research on social projection shows that people overestimate the prevalence of their own views among others, significantly shaping their political behaviour. But existing studies focus on wealthy, information-rich democracies, rather than lower-income, uncertain settings where evaluating others is a high-stakes part of political life. Misperceiving others can constrain voters’ ability to coordinate, undermining access to public goods or efforts to overthrow dominant parties. Misestimating support for one’s party may also undermine acceptance of electoral loss. Using original survey data from Malawi, in a pre-registered fixed-effects design, we show that respondents perceive greater levels of local support for their own party and a higher prevalence of their own ethnic group. Politically engaged individuals also report higher levels of participation by those around them. These findings provide microfoundational insights into the study of political behaviour in low-income states and highlight several avenues for future work.