IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v658y2015i1p36-66.html

The Partisan Brain

Author

Listed:
  • Erik C. Nisbet
  • Kathryn E. Cooper
  • R. Kelly Garrett

Abstract

There has been deepening concern about political polarization in public attitudes toward the scientific community. The “intrinsic thesis†attributes this polarization to psychological deficiencies among conservatives as compared to liberals. The “contextual thesis†makes no such claims about inherent psychological differences between conservatives and liberals, but rather points to interacting institutional and psychological factors as the forces driving polarization. We evaluate the evidence for both theses in the context of developing and testing a theoretical model of audience response to dissonant science communication. Conducting a national online experiment ( N = 1,500), we examined audience reactions to both conservative-dissonant and liberal-dissonant science messages and consequences for trust in the scientific community. Our results suggest liberals and conservatives alike react negatively to dissonant science communication, resulting in diminished trust of the scientific community. We discuss how our findings link to the larger debate about political polarization of science and implications for science communicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik C. Nisbet & Kathryn E. Cooper & R. Kelly Garrett, 2015. "The Partisan Brain," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 658(1), pages 36-66, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:658:y:2015:i:1:p:36-66
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716214555474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716214555474
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716214555474?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dan M. Kahan & Ellen Peters & Maggie Wittlin & Paul Slovic & Lisa Larrimore Ouellette & Donald Braman & Gregory Mandel, 2012. "The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(10), pages 732-735, October.
    2. Charles S. Taber & Milton Lodge, 2006. "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 755-769, July.
    3. Daniel Sarewitz, 2013. "Science’s rightful place is in service of society," Nature, Nature, vol. 502(7473), pages 595-595, October.
    4. Dan M. Kahan, 2013. "Ideology, motivated reasoning, and cognitive reflection," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(4), pages 407-424, July.
    5. Susanna Hornig Priest & Heinz Bonfadelli & Maria Rusanen, 2003. "The “Trust Gap” Hypothesis: Predicting Support for Biotechnology Across National Cultures as a Function of Trust in Actors," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(4), pages 751-766, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bertoli, Paola & Grembi, Veronica & Morelli, Massimo & Rosso, Anna Cecilia, 2023. "In medio stat virtus? Effective communication and preferences for redistribution in hard times," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 105-147.
    2. Aaron Ancell, 2020. "Political irrationality, utopianism, and democratic theory," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 3-21, February.
    3. Chad M. Baum & Christian Gross, 2017. "Sustainability policy as if people mattered: developing a framework for environmentally significant behavioral change," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 53-95, April.
    4. Dan M. Kahan & Hank Jenkins-Smith & Tor Tarantola & Carol L. Silva & Donald Braman, 2015. "Geoengineering and Climate Change Polarization," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 658(1), pages 192-222, March.
    5. Lawrence C. Hamilton & Joel Hartter & Kei Saito, 2015. "Trust in Scientists on Climate Change and Vaccines," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(3), pages 21582440156, August.
    6. Carisa Bergner & Bruce A. Desmarais & John Hird, 2019. "Speaking truth in power: Scientific evidence as motivation for policy activism," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 2(1).
    7. Golman, Russell, 2023. "Acceptable discourse: Social norms of beliefs and opinions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    8. Andrew G. Meyer, 2022. "Do economic conditions affect climate change beliefs and support for climate action? Evidence from the US in the wake of the Great Recession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 64-86, January.
    9. Toby Bolsen & James N. Druckman & Fay Lomax Cook, 2015. "Citizens’, Scientists’, and Policy Advisors’ Beliefs about Global Warming," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 658(1), pages 271-295, March.
    10. Barron, Kai & Becker, Anna & Huck, Steffen, 2025. "Motivated political reasoning: On the emergence of belief-value constellations," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 172.
    11. Shuyuan Yu & John E Opfer, 2024. "Cognitive support for political partisans’ understanding of policy data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(10), pages 1-23, October.
    12. Sacha Altay & Marlène Schwartz & Anne-Sophie Hacquin & Aurélien Allard & Stefaan Blancke & Hugo Mercier, 2022. "Scaling up interactive argumentation by providing counterarguments with a chatbot," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(4), pages 579-592, April.
    13. Maciel, Marcelo V. & Martins, André C.R., 2020. "Ideologically motivated biases in a multiple issues opinion model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 553(C).
    14. Michael Hannon, 2022. "Are knowledgeable voters better voters?," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 29-54, February.
    15. Andrew Tracy & Amy Javernick-Will, 2020. "Credible Sources of Information Regarding Induced Seismicity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, March.
    16. Michael Nicholas Stagnaro & Eran Amsalem, 2025. "Factual knowledge can reduce attitude polarization," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
    17. Welsch, Heinz, 2021. "How climate-friendly behavior relates to moral identity and identity-protective cognition: Evidence from the European social surveys," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    18. Lawrence Hamilton, 2015. "What people know," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 5(1), pages 54-57, March.
    19. Fabio Boschetti & Elizabeth A. Fulton & Nicola J. Grigg, 2014. "Citizens’ Views of Australia’s Future to 2050," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-26, December.
    20. Mohamed Mostagir & James Siderius, 2022. "Learning in a Post-Truth World," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2860-2868, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:658:y:2015:i:1:p:36-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.