{"id":181630,"date":"2025-09-26T06:12:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/ku-forsker-medierne-tjener-penge-paa-en-falsk-historie-om-et-splittet-usa\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T10:16:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T08:16:34","slug":"the-media-wants-you-to-believe-the-us-is-divided-its-not-says-ucph-researcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/the-media-wants-you-to-believe-the-us-is-divided-its-not-says-ucph-researcher\/","title":{"rendered":"The media wants you to believe the US is divided. It\u2019s not, says UCPH researcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

It came as a real surprise for S\u00e9amus Power and his colleagues when they saw the results of a study that they had first thought up in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u00bbWhen you read news from the US, you get the impression that political polarisation is growing. You\u2019re likely to expect that there is no room for tolerance, difference, and multiculturalism,\u00ab says S\u00e9amus Power.<\/p>\n

But the researchers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI 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,\u00ab says S\u00e9amus Power.<\/p>\n

In fact, two thirds of participants wanted a more<\/em> ethnically diverse United States, and over half of them wanted greater religious diversity.<\/p>\n

Most people are moderates<\/h4>\n

The study, which was by S\u00e9amus 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n

PRofile<\/p>\n

S\u00e9amus Power holds a BA in Applied Psychology from University College Cork. In 2007, he completed an MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. It was here that his interest in interdisciplinary work and in social and cultural psychology began.<\/p>\n

Between 2012 and 2017, Power studied and worked at the University of Chicago, where he completed a five-year PhD in Comparative Human Development and later held a two-year postdoc at the Division of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n

He is currently working on a book about capitalism and inequality, entitled Inequality \u2013 The View from Manywheres<\/em>, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2026.<\/p>\n

With his two coauthors Fathali Moghaddam and Robert Sternberg he is also writing another book with the title The Psychology of Serious Every World Problems<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The results of the studies described in this article were published this summer in the journal Ethos: Journal for Psychological Anthropology.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

S\u00e9amus 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.<\/p>\n

But this did not align with the reality Power experienced studying and working at the University of Chicago:<\/p>\n

\u00bbMost Americans are not extremists \u2014 they hold nuanced and moderate views. But the media rarely talk about them \u2014 because they make more money reporting on polarisation.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Psychology needs to break out of its silo<\/h4>\n

Power hopes his work can help counter division in society \u2014 if his discipline gets the chance to contribute.<\/p>\n

\u00bbPsychology has a lot to offer when it comes to understanding all the complexities of important social issues \u2014 as a counterweight to the selective, polarising perspectives found in the media,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI see myself as one of those who advocate for psychology as a \u2018society-shaping\u2019 discipline. Most of psychology has lived its own life inside an isolated silo for too long \u2014 and that\u2019s not good for the field,\u00ab says S\u00e9amus Power.<\/p>\n

The study on Americans\u2019 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:<\/p>\n

\u00bbPsychology should not just passively reflect social reality or merely respond to problems as they arise. Some of us are working for a psychology \u2014 and, more broadly, a set of social sciences \u2014 that helps create the kind of society we want to live in in the future.\u00ab<\/p>\n

Danes under scrutiny<\/h4>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Some of his interests within cultural psychology are closely aligned with sociology and anthropology:<\/p>\n

\u00bbI study the similarities and differences between groups of people, because immigration brings together groups with different cultures. It\u2019s a phenomenon that defines the age we live in,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9amus Power is currently planning several studies in other liberal democracies to better understand people\u2019s views on the ideal population composition. He is planning a project focused on Denmark.<\/p>\n

\u00bbSome 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,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n

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.<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stories of a deeply polarised United States are overblown. Just 1.1 per cent of Americans want an ethnically homogeneous society. This is according to a new study led by psychologist S\u00e9amus Power of the University of Copenhagen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":181441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","expression-news_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe media wants you to believe the US is divided. 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It\u2019s not, says UCPH researcher"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/#website","url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/","name":"University Post","description":"Independent of management","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/#\/schema\/person\/e92ba15746694abe6835e7ad00240ca7","name":"Anders Fjeldberg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dbd29cb1d1ebf4635c343a9e2606601d58f406394ebf2f41b2d976b72071e42f?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dbd29cb1d1ebf4635c343a9e2606601d58f406394ebf2f41b2d976b72071e42f?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dbd29cb1d1ebf4635c343a9e2606601d58f406394ebf2f41b2d976b72071e42f?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Anders Fjeldberg"},"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/author\/anders\/"}]}},"advancedCustomFields":{"expression":{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11485,"filter":"raw"},"enable_comments":true,"align_content":"alignleft","feature_color":"","article_updated":"","layout_group":[{"acf_fc_layout":"Headline","use_post_title":true,"headline":"","style":"default","highlighted_words":"","text_size":"small"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":181436,"id":181436,"title":"Seamus Power lektor i psykologi, multikulturalisme02","filename":"dsc_4011seamuspowerweb.jpg","filesize":546163,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb.jpg","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/ku-forsker-medierne-tjener-penge-paa-en-falsk-historie-om-et-splittet-usa\/dsc_4011-seamus-power-web\/","alt":"S\u00e9amus Power er fra Irland, men allerede f\u00f8r han kom til KU, var han med til at starte et forskningsprojekt, der nu har vist, at amerikanerne er indstillet p\u00e5 tolerance og forskellighed, selv om medierne og politikerne kun ser problemer og konflikt.","author":"8","description":"","caption":"S\u00e9amus Power er fra Irland, men allerede f\u00f8r han kom til KU, var han med til at starte et forskningsprojekt, der nu har vist, at amerikanerne er indstillet p\u00e5 tolerance og forskellighed, selv om medierne og politikerne kun ser problemer og konflikt.","name":"dsc_4011-seamus-power-web","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":180844,"date":"2025-09-19 07:39:12","modified":"2025-10-16 08:35:22","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2400,"height":1600,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-480x320.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-1280x853.jpg","large-width":1280,"large-height":853,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-1536x1024.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-2048x1365.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":1365,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-290x193.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-700x467.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4011seamuspowerweb-990x660.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":660}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"S\u00e9amus Power is from Ireland. Before he joined the University of Copenhagen, he helped launch a research project that has now shown that Americans are open to tolerance and diversity \u2014 despite media and politicians only focussing on problems and conflict."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"Cultural psychology","text":"Stories of a deeply polarised United States are overblown. Just 1.1 per cent of Americans want an ethnically homogeneous society. This is according to a new study led by psychologist S\u00e9amus Power of the University of Copenhagen.","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>It came as a real surprise for S\u00e9amus Power and his colleagues when they saw the results of a study that they had first thought up in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWhen you read news from the US, you get the impression that political polarisation is growing. You\u2019re likely to expect that there is no room for tolerance, difference, and multiculturalism,\u00ab says S\u00e9amus Power.<\/p>\n<p>But the researchers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI 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,\u00ab says S\u00e9amus Power.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, two thirds of participants wanted a <em>more<\/em> ethnically diverse United States, and over half of them wanted greater religious diversity.<\/p>\n<h4>Most people are moderates<\/h4>\n<p>The study, which was by S\u00e9amus 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">PRofile<\/p>\n<p>S\u00e9amus Power holds a BA in Applied Psychology from University College Cork. In 2007, he completed an MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. It was here that his interest in interdisciplinary work and in social and cultural psychology began.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2012 and 2017, Power studied and worked at the University of Chicago, where he completed a five-year PhD in Comparative Human Development and later held a two-year postdoc at the Division of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>He is currently working on a book about capitalism and inequality, entitled <em>Inequality \u2013 The View from Manywheres<\/em>, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>With his two coauthors Fathali Moghaddam and Robert Sternberg he is also writing another book with the title <em>The Psychology of Serious Every World Problems<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The results of the studies described in this article were published this summer in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/etho.70018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Ethos: Journal for Psychological Anthropology.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>S\u00e9amus 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.<\/p>\n<p>But this did not align with the reality Power experienced studying and working at the University of Chicago:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbMost Americans are not extremists \u2014 they hold nuanced and moderate views. But the media rarely talk about them \u2014 because they make more money reporting on polarisation.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h4>Psychology needs to break out of its silo<\/h4>\n<p>Power hopes his work can help counter division in society \u2014 if his discipline gets the chance to contribute.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbPsychology has a lot to offer when it comes to understanding all the complexities of important social issues \u2014 as a counterweight to the selective, polarising perspectives found in the media,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI see myself as one of those who advocate for psychology as a \u2018society-shaping\u2019 discipline. Most of psychology has lived its own life inside an isolated silo for too long \u2014 and that\u2019s not good for the field,\u00ab says S\u00e9amus Power.<\/p>\n<p>The study on Americans\u2019 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:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbPsychology should not just passively reflect social reality or merely respond to problems as they arise. Some of us are working for a psychology \u2014 and, more broadly, a set of social sciences \u2014 that helps create the kind of society we want to live in in the future.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h4>Danes under scrutiny<\/h4>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Some of his interests within cultural psychology are closely aligned with sociology and anthropology:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI study the similarities and differences between groups of people, because immigration brings together groups with different cultures. It\u2019s a phenomenon that defines the age we live in,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>S\u00e9amus Power is currently planning several studies in other liberal democracies to better understand people\u2019s views on the ideal population composition. He is planning a project focused on Denmark.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbSome 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,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p><em>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.<\/em><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with upcoming events and top University of Copenhagen stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":46,"name":"Science","slug":"science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":46,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":830,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11485,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":671,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/dsc_4073seamuspowerfacebook-1280x625.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181630"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181773,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181630\/revisions\/181773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}