BJPolS abstract discussing a scholarly analysis on partisan-motivated reasoning and its impact on political persuasion and discourse.
From April 2025 -
Evidence Can Change Partisan Minds but Less So in Hostile Contexts - cup.org/3E7A4ja
"in the absence of affective triggers, partisans were persuaded by both congenial and uncongenial information"
- @jinwookim.bsky.social
#OpenAccess
New paper on misperceptions out in PNAS @pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Why do people overestimate the size of politically relevant groups (immigrant, LGBTQ, Jewish) and quantities (% of budget spent on foreign aid, % of refugees that are criminals)?🧵👇
My former postdoc @jinwookim.bsky.social shows how information can change beliefs but partisan hostility can undo and even reverse those effects - a fantastic paper that helps bridge conflicting findings in the research on these questions.
Hi Alex, thanks for your reply. I've learned a lot from your work! Yes, the uncivil messages included additional party cues (though even the civil ones used the term "Obamacare" etc) -- and I think that may have made party cues more salient or altered people's perceptions of the message "author."
Figure 4 providing a graphical summary of the main results of the study: a slight attenuation of average treatment effects from a repeated measure design, and large reduction in the ATEs' standard errors (improved precision).
New paper with @dianamejordan.bsky.social and sky-less Trent Ollerenshaw! We provide large-N tests of repeated measure designs in survey experiments, showing that they slightly attenuate ATEs relative to post-only designs, but provide large gains to precision. Thread below.
Preprint: osf.io/q6czp
Normatively, while motivated reasoning is often viewed as a sign of citizens’ inability to think rationally, these results suggest that its root cause may lie in political elites’ failure—or refusal—to foster a constructive information environment. doi.org/pgbr
Also, by showing that partisans—comparable in all other ways—either accept or reject uncongenial information depending on randomly induced variation in partisan sentiment, these results provide clearer evidence of partisan-motivated reasoning than prior studies.
So resistance to persuasion wasn’t triggered by opposing info itself, but by the hostile context in which it’s encountered. This means two things can be true: (1) partisans are open to persuasion; (2) they often engage in motivated reasoning in today’s information environment.
Without the affective triggers, Dems/Reps updated their beliefs *and* attitudes in the same direction. But when made to feel hostile first, they grew more dismissive of opposing information and ended up disagreeing more, not less, after considering the same facts.
I examine several conditions under which partisans may become especially resistant, drawing on two experiments—including one that randomly induced variation in affective polarization before presenting persuasive messages using either civil or uncivil language.
Partisans often seem unwavering in their support for a politician/policy, even when faced with opposing evidence. But recent studies show that partisans can be persuaded. So how can both be true? My new @bjpols.bsky.social ky.social paper explores this Q: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
It’s taken too long for this to come out, and I’ve probably pestered my colleagues and mentors about it far too many times. Grateful to all of them—but especially to @brendannyhan.bsky.social
Also, by showing that partisans—comparable in all other ways—either accept or reject uncongenial information depending on randomly induced variation in partisan sentiment, these results provide clearer evidence of partisan-motivated reasoning than prior studies.
I examine several conditions under which partisans may become especially resistant, drawing on two experiments—including one that randomly induced variation in affective polarization before presenting persuasive messages using either civil or uncivil language.
So resistance to persuasion wasn’t triggered by opposing info itself, but by the hostile context in which it’s encountered. This means two things can be true: (1) partisans are open to persuasion; (2) they often engage in motivated reasoning in today’s information environment.
Without the affective triggers, Dems/Reps updated their beliefs *and* attitudes in the same direction. But when made to feel hostile first, they grew more dismissive of opposing information and ended up disagreeing more, not less, after considering the same facts.
After a review process so long and intensive that the title changed twice, I'm excited/relieved that "How to Distinguish Motivated Reasoning from Bayesian Updating" is accepted at @polbehavior.bsky.social.
osf.io/preprints/os...
Here is how it's relevant for your Thanksgiving dinner 🦃👇
Took a crack at the Political Communication starter pack. Sorry for all the great folks I undoubtedly missed
go.bsky.app/J1U6jVe
Intergroup moral hypocrisy such that people were more forgiving of transgressions when they were committed by an in-group member than an out-group member
We found evidence of moral hypocrisy among partisans and minimal groups (via
@psychscience.bsky.social):
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
New study: How the relationship between education and antisemitism varies between countries journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Key finding: Association b/w education & stereotype endorsement varies by whether countries supported statements against Holocaust denial & antisemitism
🧵 below
Interested in measuring Attentiveness in Self-Administered Surveys? Check out our new review piece published today in Public Opinion Quarterly:
doi.org/10.1093/poq/...
Title page (too much text to paste here)
A figure showing a) the strength of covariation in between different political concepts and b) the overall centrality of these concepts. Abstract organizing labels such as parties and ideologies, as well as race and immigration, are relatively central; discrete policy issues tend to be more peripheral.
I am *extremely* happy to share that "The Rhetorical 'What Goes with What': Political Pundits and the Discursive Superstructure of Ideology in U.S. Politics" is conditionally accepted at Public Opinion Quarterly: osf.io/vwqnf
New w/my amazing students: Inoculation discourages consumption of news from unreliable sources, but fails to neutralize misinfo sites.dartmouth.edu/nyhan/files/...
Key findings:
-Inoculation warning re: fake experts reduces misinfo exposure
-But no measurable reduction in misinfo effect on beliefs
Overall, conveying scientific information seems to serve more as a remedy than a cure, reducing but not eliminating misperceptions about climate change and opposition to climate policies.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
We wanted to identify a persuasive approach that might be more effective than the standard consensus messaging, but our findings do not provide sufficient evidence to suggest that one treatment is categorically superior to the other.
Finding 3: The treatments showed minimal to no impact on support for climate policies, with neither the causal nor the consensus information demonstrating a clear advantage in effectiveness.
Finding 2: We found no support for the hypothesis that causal evidence would be particularly compelling for Republicans; instead, *both* treatments had stronger effects on Republicans than Democrats.
Finding 1: The causal treatment was more effective in increasing belief in human influence on climate change than consensus messaging, but the difference was not as substantial or consistent as we initially expected.
We expected that causal info could be more effective than consensus messaging, because we thought it had a greater chance of overcoming Republicans’ baseline mistrust in climate scientists. What we found wasn’t as clearcut.
