Graphic by Eilidh McNaughton By Eilidh McNaughtonIn his inauguration speech, President Joe Biden called for unity in a time when the American political landscape is as divided as ever before. He stated that “unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days, I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real”. The political polarisation in America is hard to ignore. Insights from psychological research into how people learn and respond to information can explain, in part, the reason for the divide in America and elsewhere. One contributing factor is the phenomenon of motivated reasoning. This term explains how people access, construct, and evaluate arguments in a biased way to arrive at their preferred conclusion. Although sometimes people are motivated to come to accurate conclusions about a topic, this term is commonly used to describe humans’ bias towards information that confirms our pre-existing believes. Researchers have found that people perceive information as more legitimate when it supports rather than challenges their political persuasions. Whilst accepting information that supports our beliefs and being more critical of information that disputes them can impact all areas of life, it is particularly prevalent when looking at politics. We seek out information that confirms our established political opinions and dismiss contradictory information in order to avoid cognitive dissonance – a type of discomfort resulting from holding two conflicting beliefs. This highlights that often humans do not act objectively and rationally, but instead rely on emotionally biased reasoning. Whilst experts have clashed about what groups in society are more prone to motivated reasoning, Ditto’s 2019 study found that Democrats and Republicans were equally guilty of this biased thinking. He showed that we use different standards to assess information when it supports our political views than when it challenges them and cherry pick evidence that backs up what we want to believe. This may help to explain why it is difficult to persuade people with strong political beliefs and ideologies of a different view, even with seemingly irrefutable evidence. This process of assessing information in a biased way happens outside of our conscious awareness. It is also not only the general public who are affected by motivated reasoning, as shown by Baekgaard and colleagues. Even politicians base their interpretation of new information on their already established beliefs just as the general public does. Gaining more evidence about a topic also does not necessarily hep to build bridges across party lines. These researchers found that more evidence can reinforce prior beliefs and actually increase political conflict. Thus, politicians may not be any better than the average citizen at assessing information objectively. In addition to motivated reasoning, when people are evaluating information, the source of the information is very important. People use political figures to guide their assessment of the truthfulness of information and are more trusting of information which comes from figures they support. This is true even in the case of misinformation. It has been shown that Republicans are more likely to believe accurate and inaccurate information which comes from former President Donald Trump whereas Democrats are less likely to believe all information from the same source. Researchers have also found evidence that corrections of false information may fail to dismiss misconceptions and can sometimes backfire, instead strengthening false beliefs, as people are motivated to defend their belief systems. Psychological research into how people process information has shown us how the political landscape in America has become so divided and these biases will be a huge ongoing challenge, not only in America, but across the world. References:
Baekgaard, M., Christensen, J., Dahlmann, C., Mathiasen, A., & Petersen, N. (2019). The Role of Evidence in Politics: Motivated Reasoning and Persuasion among Politicians. British Journal of Political Science, 49(3), 1117-1140. doi:10.1017/S0007123417000084 David Botti (2014, June 12). America's political divide by the numbers. BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-27629535 Ditto, P. H., Liu, B. S., Clark, C. J., Wojcik, S. P., Chen, E. E., Grady, R. H., Celniker, J. B., & Zinger, J. F. (2019). At Least Bias Is Bipartisan: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(2), 273–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617746796 Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480 Nyhan, B., Reifler, J. (2010). When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32, 303–330. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2 Philip DeFranco. (2021, Jan 2). Truthful GodKing Trump OUT. Beta Biden IN. Here's What Happens Next & What You Need To Remember... [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHlgzk51IcE&t=266s Swire, B., Berinsky, A.J., Lewandowsky, S., & Ecker, U.K.H. (2013). Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon. R. Soc. open sci.4160802. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160802
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |