Motivated reasoning, fast and slow

Camilla Strömbäck,Daniel Västfjäll,David Andersson,Gustav Tinghög

doi:10.1017/bpp.2021.34

Camilla Strömbäck, Daniel Västfjäll + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.34

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Abstract

AbstractAre people more likely to (mis)interpret information so that it aligns with their ideological identity when relying on feelings compared to when engaging in analytical thinking? Or is it the other way around: Does deliberation increase the propensity to (mis)interpret information to confirm existing political views? In a behavioral experiment, participants (n= 1207, Swedish sample) assessed numerical information concerning the effects of gender quotas and immigration either under time pressure or under no time pressure. To measure trait differences in cognitive sophistication, we also collected data on numeric ability. We found clear evidence of motivated reasoning when assessing both the effects of gender quotas on companies’ financial results and the effect of refugee intake on crime rates. Subjects who prioritized equality over liberty on the labor market were 13 percentage points less likely to correctly assess numerical information depicting that companies that used gender quotas when hiring made less profit. Subjects who classified themselves as ‘Swedes’ rather than ‘World citizens’ were 14 percentage points less likely to correctly assess numerical information depicting that crime rates decreased following immigration. Time pressure did not affect the likelihood to engage in motivated reasoning, while subjects with higher numeric ability were less likely to engage in motivated reasoning when analyzing information concerning refugee intake, but more likely to engage in motivated reasoning when analyzing information regarding the effect of gender quotas. Together these results indicate that motivated reasoning is primarily driven by individual differences in analytical thinking at the trait level and not by situational factors such as time pressure, and that whether motivated reasoning is primarily driven by analysis or feelings depends on the topic at hand.

Highlights

Partisan consistent evaluation of information, where people assess information in a way to protect valued beliefs, rather than objectively consider the facts, is commonlyDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core
In the gender quota scenario, participants prioritizing equality over liberty on the labor market were 13 percentage points less likely to interpret numerical information showing that companies with gender quotas performed worse, correctly
As the confidence interval of the control group and the treatment group overlaps in both Figure 5A,B, our results indicate that there was no effect of time pressure on motivated reasoning in neither the immigration scenario nor the gender quota scenario

Summary

Introduction

Partisan consistent evaluation of information, where people assess information in a way to protect valued beliefs, rather than objectively consider the facts, is commonly. In a US context, liberals have been found to be more likely to trust scientific reports on climate change than conservatives (Drummond & Fischhoff, 2017), and liberals were more likely to correctly interpret numerical information showing that banning guns decreased crime rates, while conservatives were more likely to correctly interpret information showing that banning guns increased crime rates (Kahan et al, 2017). In a Swedish context, globally oriented people were more likely to correctly interpret information showing that immigration decreased crime rates, while nationally oriented people were more likely to assess the information correctly when it showed that immigration was linked to increased crime rates (Lind et al, 2018). There is mounting evidence showing that motivated reasoning exists and impacts information processing in many areas of public policy

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