Abstract
It is well-recognized that increasingly polarized American partisans subscribe to sharply diverging worldviews. Can partisanship influence Americans to view the world around them differently from one another? In the current research, we explored partisans’ recollections of objective events that occurred during identical footage of a real protest. All participants viewed the same 87-second compilation of footage from a Women’s March protest. Trump supporters (vs. others) recalled seeing a greater number of negative protest tactics and events (e.g., breaking windows, burning things), even though many of these events did not occur. False perceptions among Trump supporters, in turn, predicted beliefs that the protesters’ tactics were extreme, ultimately accounting for greater opposition to the movement and its cause. Our findings point to the possibility of a feedback loop wherein partisanship underlies different perceptions of the exact same politically relevant event, which in turn may allow observers to cling more tightly to their original partisan stance.
Highlights
Research shows that Americans are polarized in terms of their political views [1, 2], morality [3], and even the popular culture they consume
It is clear the two sides of the aisle have different worldviews, but can partisanship even lead people to view the facts of the world around them differently? In the present research we examine whether partisanship plays a role in shaping even visual perceptions of objective, politically relevant events, influencing individuals from opposing parties to observe the same set of events yet come away with different memories of what occurred, predicting diverging impressions of the event
Partisans are apt to engage in directionally motivated reasoning [9, 10], leading them to seek out information that reinforces preferences, and to counter-argue information that contradicts preferences
Summary
Research shows that Americans are polarized in terms of their political views [1, 2], morality [3], and even the popular culture they consume. It is clear the two sides of the aisle have different worldviews, but can partisanship even lead people to view the facts of the world around them differently? Political partisanship shapes memories and perceptions of identical protest events incorporate the information, whereas if it contradicts existing beliefs, interpretation will be guided by existing beliefs. Partisans are apt to engage in directionally motivated reasoning [9, 10], leading them to seek out information that reinforces preferences (i.e., confirmation bias), and to counter-argue information that contradicts preferences (i.e., disconfirmation bias; [11])
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