Motivated Reasoning and Political Parties: Evidence for Increased Processing in the Face of Party Cues

Extant research in political science has demonstrated that citizens’ opinions on policies are influenced by their attachment to the party sponsoring them. At the same time, little evidence exists illuminating the psychological processes through which such party cues are filtered. From the psychological literature on source cues, we derive two possible hypotheses: (1) party cues activate heuristic processing aimed at minimizing the processing effort during opinion formation, and (2) party cues activate group motivational processes that compel citizens to support the position of their party. As part of the latter processes, the presence of party cues would make individuals engage in effortful motivated reasoning to produce arguments for the correctness of their party’s position. Following psychological research, we use response latency to measure processing effort and, in support of the motivated reasoning hypothesis, demonstrate that across student and nationally representative samples, the presence of party cues increases processing effort.     

The Motivated Processing of Political Arguments

We report the results of an experiment designed to replicate and extend recent findings on motivated political reasoning. In particular, we are interested in disconfirmation biases—the tendency to counter-argue or discount information with which one disagrees—in the processing of political arguments on policy issues. Our experiment examines 8 issues, including some of local relevance and some of national relevance, and manipulates the presentation format of the policy arguments. We find strong support for our basic disconfirmation hypothesis: people seem unable to ignore their prior beliefs when processing arguments or evidence. We also find that this bias is moderated by political sophistication and strength of prior attitude. We do not find, however, that argument type matters, suggesting that motivated biases are quite robust to changes in argument format. Finally, we find strong support for the polarization of attitudes as a consequence of biased processing.

How Trust Matters: The Changing Political Relevance of Political Trust

Americans most often think about government in terms of its ability to grapple with issues of redistribution and race. However, the September 11 terrorist attacks led to a massive increase in media attention to foreign affairs, which caused people to think about the government in terms of defense and foreign policy. We demonstrate that such changes in issue salience alter the policy preferences that political trust shapes. Specifically, we show that trust did not affect attitudes about the race‐targeted programs in 2004 as it usually does, but instead affected a range of foreign policy and national defense preferences. By merging survey data gathered from 1980 through 2004 with data from media content analyses, we show that, more generally, trust's effects on defense and racial policy preferences, respectively, increase as the media focus more attention in these areas and decrease when that attention ebbs.     

The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion

Political parties play a vital role in democracies by linking citizens to their representatives. Nonetheless, a longstanding concern is that partisan identification slants decision-making. Citizens may support (oppose) policies that they would otherwise oppose (support) in the absence of an endorsement from a political party—this is due in large part to what is called partisan motivated reasoning where individuals interpret information through the lens of their party commitment. We explore partisan motivated reasoning in a survey experiment focusing on support for an energy law. We identify two politically relevant factors that condition partisan motivated reasoning: (1) an explicit inducement to form an “accurate” opinion, and (2) cross-partisan, but not consensus, bipartisan support for the law. We further provide evidence of how partisan motivated reasoning works psychologically and affects opinion strength. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for understanding opinion formation and the overall quality of citizens’ opinions.     

Contacting as a channel of Political Involvement: Collectively Motivated,Individually Enacted

Citizen-initiated contact with politicians is an increasing, but often neglected, form of political participation. Direct contact fits well with new participation trends that increased individualisation and a single-issue focus have brought forth, and is often interpreted as a participatory form that conforms with such new demands. Yet while political participation through most traditional channels is decreasing, direct-contact increase implies that people are still channelling involvement through the established institutions. Accordingly, this article argues that the significant increase in direct contacting of representatives is not an expression of protest behaviour. On the contrary, contacting shows strong adherence to representative democracy. It is related to conventional modes of political participation, above all party-related activities. This study examines contacting in relation to other forms of political involvement, using data from the Norwegian Citizenship Survey. The analyses reveal that even after removing from the analyses those who themselves hold public office, citizen-initiated contacting is related to party activity. Political ties are more important in explaining contacting than is the socio-economic status of the contactors.     

The Moderating Effect of Debates on Political Attitudes

In theory, candidate debates can influence voters by providing information about candidates' quality and policy positions. However, there is limited evidence about whether and why debates influence voters in new democracies. We use a field experiment on parliamentary debates during Ghana's 2016 elections to show that debates improve voters' evaluations of candidates. Debates have the strongest effect on partisan voters, who become more favorable toward and more likely to vote for opponent-party candidates and less likely to vote for co-partisans. Experimental and unique observational data capturing participants' second-by-second reactions to the debates show that policy information was the most important causal mechanism driving partisan moderation, especially among strong partisans. A follow-up survey shows that these effects persist in electorally competitive communities, whereas they dissipate in party strongholds. Policy-centered debates have the potential to reduce partisan polarization in new democracies, but the local political context conditions the persistence of these effects.     

Political Sophistication and Policy Reasoning: A Reconsideration

The sophistication-interaction theory of mass policy reasoning, which posits that the strength of the relationship between abstract principles and policy preferences is conditional on political sophistication, dominates the study of public opinion. This article argues that the sophistication-interaction theory does not hold to the degree the consensus claims. Specifically, it challenges the proposition that sophistication promotes the use of domain-specific beliefs and values. Analysis of 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990 NES data yields two compelling findings. First, a series of confirmatory factor analyses indicate that beliefs about equal opportunity, self-reliance, and limited government in the social welfare domain and about militarism and anticommunism in the foreign policy domain are structured coherently and equivalently in the minds of citizens at different levels of sophistication. Second, structural equation model results demonstrate that political sophistication does not systematically enhance the impact these principles have on policy preferences .     

Trust Your Compatriots, but Count Your Change: The Roles of Trust, Mistrust and Distrust in Democracy

Although trust is clearly central to human relations of all kinds, it is less clear whether there is a role for trust in democratic politics. In this article, I argue that trust is central to democratic institutions as well as to democratic political participation, and that arguments which make distrust the central element of democracy fail. First, I argue for the centrality of trust to the democratic process. The voluntary compliance that is central to democracies relies on trust, along two dimensions: citizens must trust their legislators to have the national interest in mind and citizens must trust each other to abide by democratically established laws. Second, I refute arguments that place distrust at the centre of democratic institutions. I argue, instead, that citizens must be vigilant with respect to their legislators and fellow citizens; that is, they must be willing to ensure that the institutions are working fairly and that people continue to abide by shared regulations. This vigilance – which is reflected both in a set of institutions as well as an active citizenry – is motivated by an attitude termed 'mistrust'. Mistrust is a cautious attitude that propels citizens to maintain a watchful eye on the political and social happenings within their communities. Moreover, mistrust depends on trust: we trust fellow citizens to monitor for abuses of our own rights and privileges just as we monitor for abuses of their rights and privileges. Finally, I argue that distrust is inimical to democracy. We are, consequently, right to worry about widespread reports of trust's decline. Just as distrust is harmful to human relations of all kinds, and just as trust is central to positive human relations of all kinds, so is distrust inimical to democracy and trust central to its flourishing.     

The Political Foundations of Trust and Distrust: Reforms and Protests in France

This article argues that the high level of protest activity in France is, at least partly, the result of distrust between the government and the trade unions, and that such distrust is inevitable in a society where unions are sometimes strong enough to mobilise against the government but not confident in their own future strength. This trust problem can be overcome if governments are willing to make institutional changes that commit them to future policies, but such political engineering is costly and unstable, which explains why governments sometimes prefer open confrontation. The empirical part of the paper analyses four French social and labour market reform initiatives in the 1990s and 2000s, demonstrating that the ideas developed in this article help to explain important features of contemporary French policy-making.     

The Relevance of Political Trust in Postwar Lebanon

Political trust in Lebanon is perceived to be drastically low. Instead of being regarded as agents of citizens' well-being, public officials are deemed as corrupting forces in the society. This attitude reflects people's discontent as a result of official policy. However, findings indicate that people's dissatisfaction with the government reduces political trust. This situation creates an environment in which it is difficult for those in government to succeed. The consequences of loss of trust could be detrimental to the legitimacy of the regime in question. The study derives its importance from the return to power of billionaire Rafik Hariri, a three time former premier, on the 22nd of October 2000, two years after being forced out of office and accused of corruption. Hariri hopes to reinvigorate his post-civil war reconstruction program that stalled while he was out of power. With many former ministers from Hariri's former 1992-1998 tenure reappointed and in light of Hariri's pledge to proceed with his previous policy, the survey findings indicate the low levels of political confidence that constrain the new government program to prevail over the country's bitter political situation.     

Motivated Reasoning and Yard-Sign-Stealing Partisans: Mine is a Likable Rogue,Yours is a Degenerate Criminal

We fielded an experiment in the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study testing the theory that motivated reasoning governs reactions to news about misdeeds on the campaign trail. Treated subjects either encountered a fabricated news story involving phone calls with deceptive information about polling times or one involving disappearing yard signs (the offending party was varied at random). Control subjects received no treatment. We then inquired about how the treated subjects felt about dirty tricks in political campaigns and about all subjects’ trust in government. We find that partisans process information about dirty campaign tricks in a motivated way, expressing exceptional concern when the perpetrators are political opponents. However, there is almost no evidence that partisans’ evaluations of dirty political tricks in turn color other political attitudes, such as political trust.     

政治信任的逻辑起点及战略选择

作为政治合法性逻辑起点的政治信任,在现代化的进程中显得尤其重要。改革开放以来的实践证明,对急剧变革的中国社会来说,政治信任很容易受到干扰和动摇。因此,追寻政治不信任的产生根源,考察政治信任的逻辑结构,应该把根本制度和机制剥离开来,消除把政治信任置于机制之上的误区;应该把制度功能和角色功能区分开来,消除把政治信任置于角色功能之上的误区;应该把整体的政权、政府同具体的政府部门区分开来,将政治信任的基础构筑在对整体的政权和政府的评估上,防止政治信任在具体单位和部门的失误中流失。     

The (Null) Effects of Happiness on Affective Polarization,Conspiracy Endorsement,and Deep Fake Recognition: Evidence from Five Survey Experiments in Three Countries

Affective polarization is a key concern in America and other democracies. Although past evidence suggests some ways to minimize it, there are no easily applicable interventions that have been found to work in the increasingly polarized climate. This project examines whether irrelevant factors, or incidental happiness more specifically, have the power to reduce affective polarization (i.e., misattribution of affect or “carryover effect”). On the flip side, happiness can minimize systematic processing, thus enhancing beliefs in conspiracy theories and impeding individual ability to recognize deep fakes. Three preregistered survey experiments in the US, Poland, and the Netherlands (total N?=?3611) induced happiness in three distinct ways. Happiness had no effects on affective polarization toward political outgroups and hostility toward various divisive social groups, and also on endorsement of conspiracy theories and beliefs that a deep fake was real. Two additional studies in the US and Poland (total N?=?2220), also induced anger and anxiety, confirming that all these incidental emotions had null effects. These findings, which emerged uniformly in three different countries, among different partisan and ideological groups, and for those for whom the inductions were differently effective, underscore the stability of outgroup attitudes in contemporary America and other countries.

     

Bureaucratic Roles: Political Loyalty and Professional Autonomy*

Political leaders in many countries have experienced growing problems of capacity in the postwar period, a development leading to an increase in the delegation of authority to public administration and civil servants. This delegation of authority creates a significant potential for discretionary decision-making authority on the part of public bureaucrats. One way of studying how bureaucrats handle this situation is to focus upon bureaucratic roles. Bureaucratic roles traditionally contain both political and professional norms. This article discusses how these political and professional considerations can be defined and how these norms are balanced given the potential for conflict which is present. The discussion is illustrated by measuring the perception of bureaucratic norms and role enactment among civil servants in Norwegian ministries. Results indicate that civil servants appear to have few problems in attending to and balancing both political and professional role norms.     

The Effect of Political Science Education on Political Trust and Interest: Results from a 5-year Panel Study

Citizenship education has evolved substantially in recent decades, with a rapid proliferation of education forms and approaches. The currently available evaluation studies, however, do not allow us to determine what kind of approach can be considered as a best practice for schools and education systems. In this article, we rely on the results of a 5-year panel study to investigate the long-term effects of various forms of citizenship education. Using the Belgian Political Panel Survey (n = 3,025), a three-wave longitudinal panel survey of 16-, 18- and 21-year-old Belgian late adolescents and young adults, we determine which citizenship education effort (i.e., classroom instruction, being a member of a school council, and an open-classroom climate) has a long-term effect on political trust and political interest. The results suggest that classroom instruction, the presence of an open-classroom climate, and being a member of a school board are positively related to political trust. We also find that classroom instruction and being a member of a school board are significantly associated with higher levels of political interest. We close with some observations on what these findings imply for citizenship education policies.