Democrats overestimate Republicans’ support for political violence more than vice versa

Political violence is a growing global concern. Across four preregistered studies (N=3,439), we examined perceptions of support for political violence within the United States (Studies 1-3) and India (Study 4). In Study 1, Democrats estimated that 29.6% of Republicans report supporting political violence, while only 1.83% actually did. Conversely, Republicans estimated that 19.5% of Democrats report supporting violence, while 3.54% actually did. Thus, while both sides overestimated outparty political violence support, Democrats were significantly more pessimistic. Study 2 replicated this effect in a nationally representative sample and found no similar asymmetry for non-political crime or ingroup violence support. Study 3 replicated the effect and showed that cognitive availability mediates perceived outparty violence support. Study 4 found a similar, smaller asymmetry among Indian N.D.A. and I.N.D.I.A. alliance supporters. These findings suggest that partisan misperceptions of political violence are asymmetric and partially arise from the cognitive availability of violent outgroup exemplars.