The dangers of the partisan brain

Submitted by David on Sat, 2018-02-24 05:38

A paper he coauthored - The partisan brain: An Identity-based model of political belief - seemed to have its official publication within the last week or so, so now seems an opportune time to post a talk of his from last year:

(Probably should note that his talk concludes talking about the backfire effect - the notion that presenting people with evidence against their views can cause them to believe them more strongly - which doesn't seem to have fared particularly well in replication efforts in recent years - see, e.g. There’s (More) Hope for Political Fact-Checking).

A lot of people seem to think that this happens only to the Trump-voting crowd, but, e.g., there's The Stock Market Is Up Under Trump. Clinton Voters Don't Believe It. or Most Americans Believe False Claims about the Tax Bill. This is one reason why it wouldn't surprise me too much if Trump approval slightly rises once Americans start looking at their paycheques - though economists seem pretty convinced that the tax bill won't lead to economic growth and even if a short term tax decrease might also be part of a package increasing taxes over the longer term.

If you recall that the average journalist is much more likely to lean Democrat I also don't think it should be too surprising that Republicans are more suspicious of news. It seems to me that they have good reason to be at least them it comes to some politically sensitive subjects (although the same perceptions do leave them more vulnerable to crazy idieas). Take Nate Silver's assessment of the 2016 US Presidential Elections in There Really Was A Liberal Media Bubble: