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Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs about Politics

Author

Listed:
  • John G. Bullock
  • Alan S. Gerber
  • Seth J. Hill
  • Gregory A. Huber

Abstract

Partisanship seems to affect factual beliefs about politics. For example, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that the deficit rose during the Clinton administration; Democrats are more likely to say that inflation rose under Reagan. We investigate whether such patterns reflect differing beliefs among partisans or instead reflect a desire to praise one party or criticize another. We develop a model of partisan survey response and report two experiments that are based on the model. The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual questions. The results suggest that the apparent differences in factual beliefs between members of different parties may be more illusory than real.

Suggested Citation

  • John G. Bullock & Alan S. Gerber & Seth J. Hill & Gregory A. Huber, 2013. "Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs about Politics," NBER Working Papers 19080, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19080
    Note: PE POL
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    Cited by:

    1. Ben Baumberg Geiger, 2016. "Benefit ‘myths’? The accuracy and inaccuracy of public beliefs about the benefits system," CASE Papers /199, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. Peter Schwardmann & Egon Tripodi & Joël J. van der Weele, 2019. "Self-Persuasion: Evidence from Field Experiments at Two International Debating Competitions," CESifo Working Paper Series 7946, CESifo.
    3. Shapiro, Jesse M., 2016. "Special interests and the media: Theory and an application to climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 91-108.
    4. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2020. "Misinterpreting Others and the Fragility of Social Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2281-2328, November.
    5. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2022. "Stepping Stone: Identifying self-image concerns from motivated beliefs: Does it matter how and whom you ask?," Monash Economics Working Papers 2022-05, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    6. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2021. "Identifying self-image concerns from motivated beliefs: Does it matter how and whom you ask?," Monash Economics Working Papers 2021-17, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    7. Miles S. Kimball & Collin B. Raymond & Jiannan Zhou & Junya Zhou & Fumio Ohtake & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2024. "Happiness Dynamics, Reference Dependence, and Motivated Beliefs in U.S. Presidential Elections," NBER Working Papers 32078, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Masha Krupenkin & David Rothschild & Shawndra Hill & Elad Yom-Tov, 2019. "President Trump Stress Disorder: Partisanship, Ethnicity, and Expressive Reporting of Mental Distress After the 2016 Election," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440198, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government

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