The media wants you to believe the US is divided. It’s not, says UCPH researcher

It came as a real surprise for Séamus Power and his colleagues when they saw the results of a study that they had first thought up in 2017.

»When you read news from the US, you get the impression that political polarisation is growing. You’re likely to expect that there is no room for tolerance, difference, and multiculturalism,« says Séamus Power.

But the researchers’ study painted a very different picture from the one we get from the media. The media, according to him, act like a kind of distorted mirror.

»I was very surprised by how many Americans actually have a positive view of multiculturalism. When asked about what their country should ideally look like, hardly anyone wanted a mono-religious, mono-cultural or mono-ethnic United States. Even white Christians feel this way,« says Séamus Power.

In fact, two thirds of participants wanted a more ethnically diverse United States, and over half of them wanted greater religious diversity.

Most people are moderates

The study, which was by Séamus Power and his colleagues Crystal Shackleford, Friedolin Merhout and Richard A. Shweder, included a total of 986 Americans. Of those, only 1.1 per cent said they wanted an ethnically homogeneous United States, and just 3.2 per cent said they wanted the US to be a religiously homogeneous society.

The US has a population of 342 million, so one per cent is equivalent to 3.4 million people. This means that only a relatively small part of the population needs to raise its voice before it starts to feel overwhelming or intimidating.

Séamus Power has lived in the US for many years and has experienced how two extreme groups tend to dominate the media: the far right and the far left. These two camps constantly emphasise difference and division, and they are the ones the media (over)report on.

But this did not align with the reality Power experienced studying and working at the University of Chicago:

»Most Americans are not extremists — they hold nuanced and moderate views. But the media rarely talk about them — because they make more money reporting on polarisation.«

Psychology needs to break out of its silo

Power hopes his work can help counter division in society — if his discipline gets the chance to contribute.

»Psychology has a lot to offer when it comes to understanding all the complexities of important social issues — as a counterweight to the selective, polarising perspectives found in the media,« he says.

He sees himself as a somewhat different kind of psychologist, he says, when the University Post meets him in his office at the Department of Psychology. He has worked there since 2019.

»I see myself as one of those who advocate for psychology as a ‘society-shaping’ discipline. Most of psychology has lived its own life inside an isolated silo for too long — and that’s not good for the field,« says Séamus Power.

The study on Americans’ views on multiculturalism is just one step on the way to building a broader project that will explore the extent, limits and opportunities for fostering cultural diversity in Western liberal democracies, he explains:

»Psychology should not just passively reflect social reality or merely respond to problems as they arise. Some of us are working for a psychology — and, more broadly, a set of social sciences — that helps create the kind of society we want to live in in the future.«

Danes under scrutiny

Academically, Power identifies as a social and cultural psychologist, and many of the people he has worked with as a student, a PhD, and as a postdoc, come from other branches of the social sciences.

Some of his interests within cultural psychology are closely aligned with sociology and anthropology:

»I study the similarities and differences between groups of people, because immigration brings together groups with different cultures. It’s a phenomenon that defines the age we live in,« he says.

Séamus Power is currently planning several studies in other liberal democracies to better understand people’s views on the ideal population composition. He is planning a project focused on Denmark.

»Some of the research I’m doing with Thomas Madsen and Flora Botelho here at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) suggests that there is only limited room in Denmark to express different cultural practices and ways of life. And it would be very interesting to investigate this more closely,« he says.

This article was first written in Danish and published on 23 September 2025. It has been translated into English and post-edited by Mike Young.