Naïve realism
The conviction that we see reality objectively, so anyone who disagrees must be biased.
What it means
Naïve realism is the conviction that one perceives the world directly and objectively, exactly as it is, and the corollary beliefs that follow from it: that other reasonable, open-minded people exposed to the same facts will reach the same conclusions, and that those who disagree must therefore be uninformed, irrational, lazy, or biased. The mechanism is a failure to recognize that all perception is constructed and interpreted through one's own priors, attention, and motivations, so the products of that construction feel like unmediated reality rather than one interpretation among several. This blind spot drives the bias blind spot itself — we attribute bias to opponents while feeling unbiased from the inside — and it escalates conflict, because each side experiences the other as willfully distorting an obvious truth. It is closely tied to the false consensus effect and to hostile-media perceptions, where partisans on both sides see the same coverage as slanted against them. It matters because it makes disagreement feel like bad faith rather than honest difference, fueling polarization and undermining the humility that productive dialogue requires.
Examples
In a heated dispute, each side is certain the other is 'spinning' or denying the plain, obvious truth that they themselves see clearly.
Fans of both clubs watch the same replay and each sees the referee favouring the other side, certain that anyone honest would see exactly what they see.
Two designers look at the same homepage. One finds it obviously cluttered, the other obviously clean, and each privately concludes the other simply has no taste.
First described in Ross & Ward (1996).