Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
Charles S. Taber is associate professor of political science, Stony Brook University, NY 11794‐4392 (charles.taber@stonybrook.edu). Milton Lodge is professor of political science, Stony Brook University, NY 11794‐4392 (milton.lodge@stonybrook.edu).
Abstract
We propose a model of motivated skepticism that helps explain when and why citizens are biased‐information processors. Two experimental studies explore how citizens evaluate arguments about affirmative action and gun control, finding strong evidence of a prior attitude effect such that attitudinally congruent arguments are evaluated as stronger than attitudinally incongruent arguments. When reading pro and con arguments, participants (Ps) counterargue the contrary arguments and uncritically accept supporting arguments, evidence of a disconfirmation bias. We also find a confirmation bias—the seeking out of confirmatory evidence—when Ps are free to self‐select the source of the arguments they read. Both the confirmation and disconfirmation biases lead to attitude polarization—the strengthening of t2 over t1 attitudes—especially among those with the strongest priors and highest levels of political sophistication. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of these findings for rational behavior in a democracy.
Citing Literature
Number of times cited according to CrossRef: 1404
- Daniel J. Sude, George D.H. Pearson, Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, Self-expression just a click away source interactivity impacts on confirmation bias and political attitudes, Computers in Human Behavior, 10.1016/j.chb.2020.106571, 114, (106571), (2021).
- John C. Wade, Bryan Richardson, How Psychological Processes Impact Voter Decision Making, The Psychology of Political Behavior in a Time of Change, 10.1007/978-3-030-38270-4_10, (247-260), (2021).
- Nidhi Sinha, Political Cognition: The Unconscious Mechanisms Underlying Political Beliefs and Action, The Psychology of Political Behavior in a Time of Change, 10.1007/978-3-030-38270-4_9, (235-246), (2021).
- Sarah E. Croco, Jared McDonald, Candace Turitto, Making them pay: Using the norm of honesty to generate costs for political lies, Electoral Studies, 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102250, 69, (102250), (2021).
- Lynne Zummo, Brian Donovan, K. C. Busch, Complex influences of mechanistic knowledge, worldview, and quantitative reasoning on climate change discourse: Evidence for ideologically motivated reasoning among youth, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 10.1002/tea.21648, 58, 1, (95-127), (2020).
- Sergio Martini, Mario Quaranta, Sergio Martini, Mario Quaranta, Political Support in Flux, Citizens and Democracy in Europe, 10.1007/978-3-030-21633-7, (1-20), (2020).
- Sergio Martini, Mario Quaranta, Sergio Martini, Mario Quaranta, Individual Theories and the Role of Context, Citizens and Democracy in Europe, 10.1007/978-3-030-21633-7, (139-161), (2020).
- Silvana Weber, Elena Knorr, Kognitive Verzerrungen und die Irrationalität des Denkens, Die Psychologie des Postfaktischen: Über Fake News, „Lügenpresse“, Clickbait & Co., 10.1007/978-3-662-58695-2, (103-115), (2020).
- Brian Rathbun, Towards a dual process model of foreign policy ideology, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.04.005, 34, (211-216), (2020).
- Risa Palm, Toby Bolsen, Risa Palm, Toby Bolsen, A Partisan and Polarized Issue in the United States, Climate Change and Sea Level Rise in South Florida, 10.1007/978-3-030-32602-9_3, (15-40), (2020).
- Junghwa Choi, Wesley Wehde, Trust in Emergency Management Authorities and Individual Emergency Preparedness for Tornadoes, Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy, 10.1002/rhc3.12185, 11, 1, (12-34), (2020).
- Oscar Barrera, Sergei Guriev, Emeric Henry, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics, Journal of Public Economics, 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104123, 182, (104123), (2020).
- Rebecca C. Tyson, Stephanie D. Hamilton, Aboubakr S. Lo, Bert O. Baumgaertner, Stephen M. Krone, The Timing and Nature of Behavioural Responses Affect the Course of an Epidemic, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 10.1007/s11538-019-00684-z, 82, 1, (2020).
- Ki Deuk Hyun, Nakwon Jung, Mihye Seo, Examining the Effects of Perceived Partisan Slants of News and User Comments from Portal News Sites on Portal News Trust, Third Person Perception and Selective Exposure : Comparisons of Conservative and Progressive Users, Korean Journal of Journalism & Communication Studies, 10.20879/kjjcs.2020.64.4.007, 64, 4, (247-288), (2020).
- Morris Levy, Matthew Wright, , Immigration and the American Ethos, 10.1017/9781108772174, (2020).
- Benjamin G. Bishin, Thomas J. Hayes, Matthew B. Incantalupo, Charles Anthony Smith, Elite Mobilization: A Theory Explaining Opposition to Gay Rights, Law & Society Review, 10.1111/lasr.12457, 54, 1, (233-264), (2020).
- Ben M Tappin, Gordon Pennycook, David G Rand, Thinking clearly about causal inferences of politically motivated reasoning: why paradigmatic study designs often undermine causal inference, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.01.003, 34, (81-87), (2020).
- Asmus Leth Olsen, Public Sector Communication and Performance Management, The Handbook of Public Sector Communication, 10.1002/9781119263203, (185-196), (2020).
- Michael R. Touchton, Casey A. Klofstad, Jonathan P. West, Joseph E. Uscinski, Whistleblowing or leaking? Public opinion toward Assange, Manning, and Snowden, Research & Politics, 10.1177/2053168020904582, 7, 1, (205316802090458), (2020).
- Marcelo V. Maciel, André C.R. Martins, Ideologically motivated biases in a multiple issues opinion model, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 10.1016/j.physa.2020.124293, (124293), (2020).
- Cory J. Clark, Bo M. Winegard, Tribalism in War and Peace: The Nature and Evolution of Ideological Epistemology and Its Significance for Modern Social Science, Psychological Inquiry, 10.1080/1047840X.2020.1721233, 31, 1, (1-22), (2020).
- Ingrid J. Haas, Ideological Asymmetries in Social Psychological Research: Rethinking the Impact of Political Context on Ideological Epistemology, Psychological Inquiry, 10.1080/1047840X.2020.1721234, 31, 1, (29-34), (2020).
- David Switzer, The Context of Responsiveness: Resident Preferences, Water Scarcity, and Municipal Conservation Policy, Review of Policy Research, 10.1111/ropr.12377, 37, 2, (260-279), (2020).
- James A. Stimson, Emily Wager, , Converging on Truth, 10.1017/9781108876865, (2020).
- Antony Millner, Hélène Ollivier, Leo Simon, Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections, Journal of Public Economics, 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104175, 185, (104175), (2020).
- Holly Fitzgerald, Barış Sevi, Natalie J. Shook, Fraudulent health claims: Further consideration of the role of emotions, Social Science & Medicine, 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112979, (112979), (2020).
- Desirée Schmuck, Raffael Heiss, Jörg Matthes, Drifting Further Apart? How Exposure to Media Portrayals of Muslims Affects Attitude Polarization, Political Psychology, 10.1111/pops.12664, 41, 6, (1055-1072), (2020).
- Margaret E. Roberts, Resilience to Online Censorship, Annual Review of Political Science, 10.1146/annurev-polisci-050718-032837, 23, 1, (401-419), (2020).
- Sonja Settele, Cortnie Shupe, Lives or Livelihoods? Perceived Tradeoffs and Public Demand for Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions, SSRN Electronic Journal, 10.2139/ssrn.3589891, (2020).
- Oliver James, Asmus Leth Olsen, Donald Moynihan, Gregg G. Van Ryzin, , Behavioral Public Performance, 10.1017/9781108761338, (2020).
- Matthew L. Stanley, Alyssa H. Sinclair, Paul Seli, Intellectual humility and perceptions of political opponents, Journal of Personality, 10.1111/jopy.12566, 88, 6, (1196-1216), (2020).
- Nathan E Wheeler, Suraiya Allidina, Elizabeth U Long, Stephen P Schneider, Ingrid J Haas, William A Cunningham, Ideology and predictive processing: coordination, bias, and polarization in socially constrained error minimization, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.002, 34, (192-198), (2020).
- Xiaoxia Cao, Revisiting the democratic implications of political discussion disagreement: With whom one disagrees matters, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 10.1080/19331681.2020.1751372, 17, 3, (193-207), (2020).
- Yi Wu, Fei Shen, Negativity makes us polarized: a longitudinal study of media tone and opinion polarization in Hong Kong, Asian Journal of Communication, 10.1080/01292986.2020.1784968, 30, 3-4, (199-220), (2020).
- Ben M. Tappin, Gordon Pennycook, David G. Rand, Bayesian or biased? Analytic thinking and political belief updating, Cognition, 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104375, 204, (104375), (2020).
- Heini I. Skorini, Science as a Political Battlefield, Political Identity and Democratic Citizenship in Turbulent Times, 10.4018/978-1-7998-3677-3.ch002, (29-53), (2020).
- Weiguo Xia, Mengbin Ye, Ji Liu, Ming Cao, Xi-Ming Sun, Analysis of a nonlinear opinion dynamics model with biased assimilation, Automatica, 10.1016/j.automatica.2020.109113, 120, (109113), (2020).
- Lawrence R. Jacobs, Suzanne Mettler, What Health Reform Tells Us about American Politics, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 10.1215/03616878-8255505, 45, 4, (581-593), (2020).
- Sarit Barzilai, Eva Thomm, Talia Shlomi-Elooz, Dealing with disagreement: The roles of topic familiarity and disagreement explanation in evaluation of conflicting expert claims and sources, Learning and Instruction, 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2020.101367, 69, (101367), (2020).
- Nadine Strauß, Laura Alonso-Muñoz, Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Bursting the filter bubble: the mediating effect of discussion frequency on network heterogeneity, Online Information Review, 10.1108/OIR-11-2019-0345, ahead-of-print, ahead-of-print, (2020).
- Mia Costa, Trevor Briggs, Ajaipal Chahal, Jonathan Fried, Rijul Garg, Sophia Kriz, Leo Lei, Anthony Milne, Jennah Slayton, How partisanship and sexism influence voters’ reactions to political #MeToo scandals, Research & Politics, 10.1177/2053168020941727, 7, 3, (205316802094172), (2020).
- Pierre Le Morvan, Journalistic Balance, Unintended Pyrrhonism, and Political Polarization, Democracy, Populism, and Truth, 10.1007/978-3-030-43424-3_8, (103-112), (2020).
- Stuart Shapiro, Debra Borie-Holtz, Small business response to regulation: incorporating a behavioral perspective, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10.1057/s41599-020-00552-5, 7, 1, (2020).
- Sarit Barzilai, Clark A. Chinn, A review of educational responses to the “post-truth” condition: Four lenses on “post-truth” problems, Educational Psychologist, 10.1080/00461520.2020.1786388, 55, 3, (107-119), (2020).
- Matthew L. Stanley, Peter S. Whitehead, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Paul Seli, Exposure to opposing reasons reduces negative impressions of ideological opponents, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104030, 91, (104030), (2020).
- Sarah L. Carthy, Colm B. Doody, Katie Cox, Denis O'Hora, Kiran M. Sarma, Counter‐narratives for the prevention of violent radicalisation: A systematic review of targeted interventions, Campbell Systematic Reviews, 10.1002/cl2.1106, 16, 3, (2020).
- Jane Suiter, Lala Muradova, John Gastil, David M. Farrell, Scaling up Deliberation: Testing the Potential of Mini‐Publics to Enhance the Deliberative Capacity of Citizens, Swiss Political Science Review, 10.1111/spsr.12405, 26, 3, (253-272), (2020).
- Lauren B. Hahn, Brian E. Weeks, Media Use, Selective Exposure, and Political Polarization, The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology, 10.1002/9781119011071, (1-7), (2020).
- Benjamin K. Johnson, Selective Exposure, The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology, 10.1002/9781119011071, (1-7), (2020).
- Briony Swire-Thompson, Joseph DeGutis, David Lazer, Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design Considerations, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.06.006, (2020).
- Jianing Li, Michael W Wagner, The Value of Not Knowing: Partisan Cue-Taking and Belief Updating of the Uninformed, the Ambiguous, and the Misinformed, Journal of Communication, 10.1093/joc/jqaa022, 70, 5, (646-669), (2020).
- Joel H. Steckel, , Continuing to Broaden the Marketing Concept, undefined, (53), (2020).
- Robin Bayes, Toby Bolsen, James N. Druckman, A Research Agenda for Climate Change Communication and Public Opinion: The Role of Scientific Consensus Messaging and Beyond, Environmental Communication, 10.1080/17524032.2020.1805343, (1), (2020).
- Matthew T. Ballew, Adam R. Pearson, Matthew H. Goldberg, Seth A. Rosenthal, Anthony Leiserowitz, Does socioeconomic status moderate the political divide on climate change? The roles of education, income, and individualism, Global Environmental Change, 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.102024, 60, (102024), (2020).
- Yan Liu, Heejo Keum, Jaeho Cho, The Effects of Customized Information Environments on Knowledge and Expression on SNS : Focusing on the Roles of Selective Exposure and Incidental Exposure, Korean Journal of Journalism & Communication Studies, 10.20879/kjjcs.2020.64.4.008, 64, 4, (289-324), (2020).
- CAROLINA PLESCIA, ANDRÉ BLAIS, JOHN HÖGSTRÖM, Do people want a ‘fairer’ electoral system? An experimental study in four countries, European Journal of Political Research, 10.1111/1475-6765.12372, 59, 4, (733-751), (2020).
- Justin Schon, , Surviving the War in Syria, 10.1017/9781108909716, (2020).
- Ali Bassam Mahmoud, Nicholas Grigoriou, William D. Reisel, Dieu Hack-Polay, Effects of Wartime Crisis Perceptions on the Effectiveness of Political Advertising: The Moderating Role of Political Involvement, Enlightened Marketing in Challenging Times, 10.1007/978-3-030-42545-6_137, (409-421), (2020).
- Nadja Wehl, Going beyond values versus self-interest: whose attitudes change after employment transitions?, Political Research Exchange, 10.1080/2474736X.2020.1809473, 2, 1, (1-23), (2020).
- William Ascher, , The Psychology of Poverty Alleviation, 10.1017/9781108885775, (2020).
- Daniel M. Butler, Adam M. Dynes, Do Republican and Democratic legislators have polarized views of their district’s demographics?, Research & Politics, 10.1177/2053168020953307, 7, 3, (205316802095330), (2020).
- Ingar Haaland, Christopher Roth, Labor market concerns and support for immigration, Journal of Public Economics, 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104256, 191, (104256), (2020).
- Fan Yang, Michael Horning, Reluctant to Share: How Third Person Perceptions of Fake News Discourage News Readers From Sharing “Real News” on Social Media, Social Media + Society, 10.1177/2056305120955173, 6, 3, (205630512095517), (2020).
- J. Anthony Cookson, Joseph Engelberg, William Mullins, Echo Chambers, SSRN Electronic Journal, 10.2139/ssrn.3603107, (2020).
- Linda M. Fogg, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Erin S. Bell, Views of the Highway: Infrastructure Reality, Perceptions, and Politics, SAGE Open, 10.1177/2158244020963609, 10, 4, (215824402096360), (2020).
- Peter John, Fredrik M Sjoberg, Partisan responses to democracy promotion – Estimating the causal effect of a civic information portal, World Development, 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104914, 130, (104914), (2020).
- Eric Mandelbaum, Isabel Won, Steven Gross, Chaz Firestone, Can resources save rationality? “Anti-Bayesian” updating in cognition and perception, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10.1017/S0140525X19001717, 43, (2020).
- Jeffrey Unerman, Risks from self-referential peer review echo chambers developing in research fields, The British Accounting Review, 10.1016/j.bar.2020.100910, (100910), (2020).
- Aleš Kudrnáč, What Does It Take to Fight Fake News? Testing the Influence of Political Knowledge, Media Literacy, and General Trust on Motivated Reasoning, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 10.1525/cpcs.2020.53.1.151, 53, 1, (151-167), (2020).
- Zeynep Somer-Topcu, Margit Tavits, Markus Baumann, Does party rhetoric affect voter perceptions of party positions?, Electoral Studies, 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102153, 65, (102153), (2020).
- Arie W. Kruglanski, Katarzyna Jasko, Karl Friston, All Thinking is ‘Wishful’ Thinking, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10.1016/j.tics.2020.03.004, (2020).
- Jessica A. Crowe, The Effect of Partisan Cues on Support for Solar and Wind Energy in the United States, Social Science Quarterly, 10.1111/ssqu.12799, 101, 4, (1461-1474), (2020).
- Sonja Settele, Cortnie Shupe, Lives or Livelihoods? Perceived Tradeoffs and Public Demand for Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions, SSRN Electronic Journal, 10.2139/ssrn.3609807, (2020).
- Stephan G. Grimmelikhuijsen, Suzanne J. Piotrowski, Gregg G. Van Ryzin, Latent transparency and trust in government: Unexpected findings from two survey experiments, Government Information Quarterly, 10.1016/j.giq.2020.101497, 37, 4, (101497), (2020).
- Markus Wagner, Affective polarization in multiparty systems, Electoral Studies, 10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102199, (102199), (2020).
- Thomas Milic, The Use of the Endorsement Heuristic in Swiss Popular Votes, Swiss Political Science Review, 10.1111/spsr.12407, 26, 3, (296-315), (2020).
- , Social Media and Democracy, 10.1017/9781108890960, (2020).
- Andrew M. Guess, Benjamin A. Lyons, Misinformation, Disinformation, and Online Propaganda, Social Media and Democracy, 10.1017/9781108890960, (10-33), (2020).
- Pablo Barberá, Social Media, Echo Chambers, and Political Polarization, Social Media and Democracy, 10.1017/9781108890960, (34-55), (2020).
- Staffan Himmelroos, Lauri Rapeli, Can Deliberation Reduce Political Misperceptions? Findings from a Deliberative Experiment on Immigration, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 10.16997/jdd.392, 16, 1, (58-66), (2020).
- Anna De Liddo, Nieves Pedreira Souto, Brian Plüss, Let's Replay the Political Debate: Hypervideo Technology for Visual Sensemaking of Televised Election Debates, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2020.102537, (102537), (2020).
- José A. Forni, Nenad Micic, Timothy U. Connell, Geethika Weragoda, Anastasios Polyzos, Tandem Photoredox Catalysis: Enabling Carbonylative Amidation of Aryl and Alkylhalides , Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 10.1002/anie.202006720, 59, 42, (18646-18654), (2020).
- Fabian Ebner, Lukas Maximilian Sigmund, Lutz Greb, Metal–Ligand Cooperativity of the Calix[4]pyrrolato Aluminate: Triggerable C−C Bond Formation and Rate Control in Catalysis, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 10.1002/anie.202007717, 59, 39, (17118-17124), (2020).
- Markus Hecht, Pawaret Leowanawat, Tabea Gerlach, Vladimir Stepanenko, Matthias Stolte, Matthias Lehmann, Frank Würthner, Self‐Sorting Supramolecular Polymerization: Helical and Lamellar Aggregates of Tetra‐Bay‐Acyloxy Perylene Bisimide, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 10.1002/anie.202006744, 59, 39, (17084-17090), (2020).
- Kaifu Zhang, Ling Yang, Yanfang Hu, Chenghao Fan, Yaran Zhao, Lu Bai, Yonglong Li, Faxing Shi, Jun Liu, Wei Xie, Synthesis of a Gold–Metal Oxide Core–Satellite Nanostructure for In Situ SERS Study of CuO‐Catalyzed Photooxidation, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 10.1002/anie.202007462, 59, 41, (18003-18009), (2020).
- BERT N. BAKKER, GIJS SCHUMACHER, MATTHIJS ROODUIJN, Hot Politics? Affective Responses to Political Rhetoric, American Political Science Review, 10.1017/S0003055420000519, (1), (2020).
- Bobby Duffy, Bobby Duffy, Sexuelle Fantasien, Die Tücken der Wahrnehmung, 10.1007/978-3-662-61676-5, (29-51), (2020).
- André Bächtiger, Saskia Goldberg, Towards a More Robust, but Limited and Contingent Defence of the Political Uses of Deliberative Minipublics, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 10.16997/jdd.390, 16, 2, (33-42), (2020).
- Nathaniel Geiger, Michael H. Pasek, Mike Gruszczynski, Nathaniel J. Ratcliff, Kevin S. Weaver, Political Ingroup Conformity and Pro-Environmental Behavior: Evaluating the Evidence from a Survey and Mousetracking Experiments, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101524, (101524), (2020).
- Ji Hoo Yoon, Jihyang Choi, Investigating the Relationship between Cross-cutting Exposure on Social Media and Opinion Extremity: Focusing on Encountering, Interacting, and Avoiding Disagreement, Journal of Digital Contents Society, 10.9728/dcs.2020.21.7.1261, 21, 7, (1261-1271), (2020).
- Brandon L. Bartels, Christopher D. Johnston, , Curbing the Court, 10.1017/9781316979754, (2020).
- Selina N. Emhardt, Margot Wermeskerken, Katharina Scheiter, Tamara Gog, Inferring task performance and confidence from displays of eye movements, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10.1002/acp.3721, 34, 6, (1430-1443), (2020).
- Martin Haselmayer, Lisa Hirsch, Marcelo Jenny, Love is blind. Partisanship and perception of negative campaign messages in a multiparty system, Political Research Exchange, 10.1080/2474736X.2020.1806002, 2, 1, (1806002), (2020).
- Uwe Peters, An argument for egalitarian confirmation bias and against political diversity in academia, Synthese, 10.1007/s11229-020-02846-2, (2020).
- Bobby Duffy, Bobby Duffy, Der Umgang mit unseren Fehlwahrnehmungen, Die Tücken der Wahrnehmung, 10.1007/978-3-662-61676-5, (209-227), (2020).
- Luis Eduardo Velazquez Contreras, Krystal M. Perkins, Michael Ellenbecker, Rafael Moure-Eraso, Nora Elba Munguia Vega, COVID-19 Pandemic Lessons to Facilitate Future Engagement in the Global Climate Crisis, Journal of Cleaner Production, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125178, (125178), (2020).
- James W. Davis, Rose McDermott, The Past, Present, and Future of Behavioral IR, International Organization, 10.1017/S0020818320000272, (1), (2020).
- Alex Yue Feng Zhu, Alex Lih Shing Chan, Kee Lee Chou, The Pathway Toward Radical Political Participation Among Young People in Hong Kong: A Communication Mediation Approach, East Asia, 10.1007/s12140-019-09326-6, (2020).
- Elizabeth J. Krumrei-Mancuso, Brian Newman, Intellectual humility in the sociopolitical domain, Self and Identity, 10.1080/15298868.2020.1714711, (1-28), (2020).
- Yanqin Lu, Jae Kook Lee, Determinants of cross-cutting discussion on Facebook: Political interest, news consumption, and strong-tie heterogeneity, New Media & Society, 10.1177/1461444819899879, (146144481989987), (2020).
- See more
