People think that Harry Potter, Spiderman and Gandalf would vote the same way they do, whereas Darth Vader, Cruella de Vil and Joffrey Baratheon would vote for the rival party.

New research from the University of Southampton shows how people in the UK and U.S. believe that fictional characters they admire would share their voting preferences, while those they dislike would vote the other way.

The paper “Heroes and villains: motivated projection of political identities” is published in Political Science Research & Method.