Via Rawstory:
Liberals tend to underestimate their similarity to other liberals, according to a recent study, while conservatives overestimate their similarities — and those differences may account for the relative political success of the tea party in comparison to Occupy Wall Street.
While the tea party has grown steadily more unpopular over the past three years, the conservative activist movement continues to exert a powerful influence on the Republican Party and U.S. politics.
By comparison, the populist Occupy movement pushed income inequality into the political consensus but failed to gain much political traction in the Democratic Party — and researchers say those structural differences are the result of the way liberals and conservatives perceive themselves.
“The inability of liberal Occupy Wall Street protestors to achieve consensus on vital issues ultimately contributed to the movement’s failure to develop solidarity and enact political change,” the researchers wrote in a study published Nov. 18 in Psychological Science.