Of devils, angels and brokers: how social network positions affect misperceptions of political influence

Misperceiving political opponents as more influential and evil than they are has been described as the devil shift. More recently, the opposite phenomenon known as the angel shift has been recognised where political allies are misperceived as more influential and virtuous than they are. However, research on the devil and angel shifts has been hampered by the lack of measures that separate these mechanisms analytically. We analyse the misperception of influence and differentiate between the devil and angel shifts. Furthermore, previous research has failed to take notice of how social network positions contribute to these phenomena. We argue that conceptualising the different roles that brokers play between advocacy coalitions helps explain the occurrence of the devil and angel shifts. Our findings demonstrate that the devil and angel shifts are not dyadic but triadic phenomena between advocacy coalitions and that network factors accentuate both 'shifts'.