My wife wrote a paper about this phenomenon. This happens in specific policy contexts as well as generally. In political science, the phenomenon is called the

My wife wrote a paper about this phenomenon. This happens in specific policy contexts as well as generally. In political science, the phenomenon is called the “devil shift”, coined by Sabatier. Similarly, there is also the “angel shift”: you see people who agree with you as having more virtuous motivations. My wife, Dr. Juniper Katz, wrote about these shifts in the fracking context: https://www.academia.edu/37275520/The_Space_Between_Demonization_of_Opponents_and_Policy_Divergence https://www.academia.edu/37275520/The_Space_Between_Demoniza...