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Partisan Gaps in Political Information and Information‐Seeking Behavior: Motivated Reasoning or Cheerleading?

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  • Erik Peterson
  • Shanto Iyengar

Abstract

Do partisan disagreements over politically relevant facts, and preferences for the information sources from which to obtain them, represent genuine differences of opinion or insincere cheerleading? The answer to this question is crucial for understanding the scope of partisan polarization. We test between these alternatives with experiments that offer incentives for correct survey responses and allow respondents to search for information before answering each question. We find that partisan cheerleading inflates divides in factual information, but only modestly. Incentives have no impact on partisan divides in information search; these divides are no different from those that occur outside the survey context when we examine web‐browsing data from the same respondents. Overall, our findings support the motivated reasoning interpretation of misinformation; partisans seek out information with congenial slant and sincerely adopt inaccurate beliefs that cast their party in a favorable light.

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  • Erik Peterson & Shanto Iyengar, 2021. "Partisan Gaps in Political Information and Information‐Seeking Behavior: Motivated Reasoning or Cheerleading?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 133-147, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:65:y:2021:i:1:p:133-147
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12535
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    Cited by:

    1. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Studying Information Acquisition in the Field: A Practical Guide and Review," CEBI working paper series 21-15, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    2. Michael Thaler, 2021. "The Supply of Motivated Beliefs," Papers 2111.06062, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    3. Robbett, Andrea & Colón, Lily & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2023. "Partisan political beliefs and social learning," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    4. Francesco Capozza & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Recent Advances in Studies of News Consumption," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 204, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    5. Frank Bohn & Xue Wang, 2022. "Rational erraticism," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(2), pages 219-235, April.
    6. Voelkel, Jan G. & Stagnaro, Michael & Chu, James & Pink, Sophia Lerner & Mernyk, Joseph S. & Redekopp, Chrystal & Ghezae, Isaias & Cashman, Matthew & Adjodah, Dhaval & Allen, Levi, 2023. "Megastudy identifying effective interventions to strengthen Americans’ democratic attitudes," OSF Preprints y79u5, Center for Open Science.
    7. Guglielmo Briscese & Maddalena Grignani & Stephen Stapleton, 2022. "Crises and Political Polarization: Towards a Better Understanding of the Timing and Impact of Shocks and Media," Papers 2202.12339, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    8. Ulrich Matter & Roland Hodler & Johannes Ladwig, 2022. "Personalization of Web Search During the 2020 US Elections," Papers 2209.14000, arXiv.org.

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