Ross, L., and Ward, A. (1996). “Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding.” In E. S. Reed, E. Turiel and T. Brown (Eds.), Values and Knowledge (pp. 103-135). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Defines naive realism: the conviction that one sees the world as it is, that reasonable people given the same information will agree, and that those who disagree must be uninformed, irrational or biased. Ross and Ward trace how this conviction produces false polarization (overestimating how far apart the sides are), attributions of bias to opponents, and escalating conflict, and they discuss what can reduce it.
Naive realism is the central bias in self-talk when perspectives meet. It converts a lens difference into a judgment of character. It also explains the main risk of a TIME typology: a label such as “she’s an M” hands naive realism a ready-made explanation for disagreement.