Augustus
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An interesting paper on political bias (full text in link).
The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief
There is extensive evidence that people engage in motivated political reasoning, but recent research suggests that partisanship can alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgments. We propose an identity- based model of belief for understanding the influence of partisanship on these cognitive processes. This framework helps to explain why people place party loyalty over policy, and even over truth... Because people believe that they see the world around them objectively, members of other parties who disagree with them are seen as uninformed, irrational, or biased [25].
Most of this is pretty clear (at least when we are looking at those of a different political persuasion), although I don't think many people are aware of the degree to which our strongly held beliefs can alter our perception of reality and inhibit objective analysis.
It is also worth noting that it applied to people across the political spectrum, which goes against the narrative that it 'science denial' is specifically a right-wing trend.
Something I found interesting was:
In this vein, one study examined the relationship between math skills and political problem- solving [58]. In the control condition, people who were strong at math were able to effectively solve an analytical problem. However, when political content was added to the same analytical problem – comparing crime data in cities that banned handguns against cities that did not – math skills no longer predicted how well people solved the problem. Instead, liberals were good at solving the problem when it proved that gun control reduced crime, and conservatives were good at solving the problem when it proved the opposite. In short, people with high numeracy skills were unable to reason analytically when the correct answer collided with their political beliefs. This is consistent with research showing that people who score high on various indicators of information processing, such as political sophistication ([59]; although see [48]), science literacy [60], numeracy abilities [58], and cognitive reflection [61], are the most likely to express beliefs congruent with those of their party...
Something we hear a lot is that "blindly following the party line" demonstrates a lack of intelligence or critical reasoning abilities. This is not something supported by the paper, which in fact shows somewhat the opposite.
It's always wise to be somewhat cautious with such results, although similar findings have been discussed in other papers. As well as our emotions inhibiting cognitive functionality, one thing that could be behind this is that superior reasoning abilities enable people to construct better reasons to not believe things that they do not want to accept as true.
Thoughts?
Are smart people sometimes more sheep-like than less intelligent people?
To what extent do you think your partisanship alters your memory, critical evaluation, and perceptual judgment?
The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief
There is extensive evidence that people engage in motivated political reasoning, but recent research suggests that partisanship can alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgments. We propose an identity- based model of belief for understanding the influence of partisanship on these cognitive processes. This framework helps to explain why people place party loyalty over policy, and even over truth... Because people believe that they see the world around them objectively, members of other parties who disagree with them are seen as uninformed, irrational, or biased [25].
Most of this is pretty clear (at least when we are looking at those of a different political persuasion), although I don't think many people are aware of the degree to which our strongly held beliefs can alter our perception of reality and inhibit objective analysis.
It is also worth noting that it applied to people across the political spectrum, which goes against the narrative that it 'science denial' is specifically a right-wing trend.
Something I found interesting was:
In this vein, one study examined the relationship between math skills and political problem- solving [58]. In the control condition, people who were strong at math were able to effectively solve an analytical problem. However, when political content was added to the same analytical problem – comparing crime data in cities that banned handguns against cities that did not – math skills no longer predicted how well people solved the problem. Instead, liberals were good at solving the problem when it proved that gun control reduced crime, and conservatives were good at solving the problem when it proved the opposite. In short, people with high numeracy skills were unable to reason analytically when the correct answer collided with their political beliefs. This is consistent with research showing that people who score high on various indicators of information processing, such as political sophistication ([59]; although see [48]), science literacy [60], numeracy abilities [58], and cognitive reflection [61], are the most likely to express beliefs congruent with those of their party...
Something we hear a lot is that "blindly following the party line" demonstrates a lack of intelligence or critical reasoning abilities. This is not something supported by the paper, which in fact shows somewhat the opposite.
It's always wise to be somewhat cautious with such results, although similar findings have been discussed in other papers. As well as our emotions inhibiting cognitive functionality, one thing that could be behind this is that superior reasoning abilities enable people to construct better reasons to not believe things that they do not want to accept as true.
Thoughts?
Are smart people sometimes more sheep-like than less intelligent people?
To what extent do you think your partisanship alters your memory, critical evaluation, and perceptual judgment?
