Partisan Gaps Research Articles

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

AbstractDo 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.

The Role of Partisanship, Circumstances, and Action on Citizen Views of Government Effectiveness during the Initial COVID-19 Response

Partisanship is a central factor in how citizens form their views towards government action. However, significant disasters can occasionally disrupt these patterns, causing partisan gaps to diminish and unity to increase. The initial government response to COVID-19 is an important time to study how partisanship, along with the circumstances within states and the promptness of action shape citizen response. Using survey data, this paper evaluates whether citizens view their state and the presidents response as effective. I find a significant role of partisanship, with those identifying as a different party from those of the government’s leader significantly less likely to respond that the response has been effective. In addition, taking early action and reducing the number of deaths in a state make state’s efforts more likely to be viewed as effective, but neither has a significant effect on views of the president.

Russian Twitter Accounts and the Partisan Polarization of Vaccine Discourse, 2015-2017.

Objectives. To understand how Twitter accounts operated by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) discussed vaccines to increase the credibility of their manufactured personas.Methods. We analyzed 2.82 million tweets published by 2689 IRA accounts between 2015 and 2017. Combining unsupervised machine learning and network analysis to identify "thematic personas" (i.e., accounts that consistently share the same topics), we analyzed the ways in which each discussed vaccines.Results. We found differences in volume and valence of vaccine-related tweets among 9 thematic personas. Pro-Trump personas were more likely to express antivaccine sentiment. Anti-Trump personas expressed support for vaccination. Others offered a balanced valence, talked about vaccines neutrally, or did not tweet about vaccines.Conclusions. IRA-operated accounts discussed vaccines in manners consistent with fabricated US identities.Public Health Implications. IRA accounts discussed vaccines online in ways that evoked political identities. This could exacerbate recently emerging partisan gaps relating to vaccine misinformation, as differently valenced messages were targeted at different segments of the US public. These sophisticated targeting efforts, if repeated and increased in reach, could reduce vaccination rates and magnify health disparities.

How education did (and did not) accentuate partisan differences during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-15

Education exacerbates partisan gaps in scientific knowledge and attitudes. However, previous findings about the extent and symmetry of this moderation have been mixed. As a conceptual replication of previous research, this study examines whether education asymmetrically moderates the Democrat-Republican gap in attitudes about Ebola virus disease (EVD) and policies to combat EVD. Weighted data from a survey of 1,461 non-institutionalized adults drawn from a probability-based panel were collected during the 2015 EVD epidemic. The survey measured seven attitudes: fear of personal infection, estimated severity of Ebola, suspicion of exposed Africans, suspicion of exposed Americans, Western government preparedness, support for low-intensity interventions, and support for high-intensity interventions. Knowledge about EVD was also measured. As in prior studies, highly educated Democrats uniquely diverged from other respondents in some attitudes. However, in the other attitudes, there were main party and education effects but no evidence that education was a moderator of partisan differences. Overall, education moderated partisanship when attitudes were affect-laden and targeted toward immediate threats, but not when attitudes were policy-oriented.

Regime Agenda, Elite Views and Youth Voices in a Polarized HKSAR’s Mainland Interface

The Hong Kong political landscape has been increasingly characterized by widening partisan gaps and sharpening socio-economic cleavages that pit regime against society, as well as factional groups ...

Partisan bias and expressive voting

We conduct an experiment to characterize the “expressive” voting behavior of political partisans. We find that participants who are asked to vote on the answer to factual questions tend to offer more partisan responses than those who must answer as decisive individuals. We further test whether voters exploit corrective information that sometimes challenges their partisan views. When information is available, we observe smaller partisan gaps and more correct responses, especially when the information is free. When information is costly to acquire, we find that voters generally choose to remain uninformed, consistent with the Downsian theory of rational ignorance.

Motivated Responding in Studies of Factual Learning

Large partisan gaps in reports of factual beliefs have fueled concerns about citizens’ competence and ability to hold representatives accountable. In three separate studies, we reconsider the evidence for one prominent explanation of these gaps—motivated learning. We extend a recent study on motivated learning that asks respondents to deduce the conclusion supported by numerical data. We offer a random set of respondents a small financial incentive to accurately report what they have learned. We find that a portion of what is taken as motivated learning is instead motivated responding. That is, without incentives, some respondents give incorrect but congenial answers when they have correct but uncongenial information. Relatedly, respondents exhibit little bias in recalling the data. However, incentivizing people to faithfully report uncongenial facts increases bias in their judgments of the credibility of what they have learned. In all, our findings suggest that motivated learning is less common than what the literature suggests, but also that there is a whack-a-mole nature to bias, with reduction in bias in one place being offset by increase in another place.

Partisan Differences in Nonpartisan Activity: The Case of Charitable Giving

How do political identities shape seemingly non-political behaviors, such as consumption activity? This paper explores the extent to which political divisions impact apolitical behaviors, focusing on the case of voluntary donations to charitable organizations. Drawing on recent work showing partisans’ differing use of “conspicuous consumption,” we develop and test expectations as to how charitable activity may differ for Democrats and Republicans. Using three national surveys, including an original two-wave panel study, we find sizable differences in overall giving between partisans, with Republicans giving more to charity on average. We show that partisan differences in religiosity, and not differences in beliefs about government spending or desires to signal economic status, explain partisan gaps in giving. Our findings contribute to our understanding about the broader consequences of political fragmentation in the United States and provide further evidence for the social, as opposed to ideological, roots of political identity.

Red State, Blue State, Flu State: Media Self-Selection and Partisan Gaps in Swine Flu Vaccinations

This study assesses the relationship between political partisanship and attitudes and behavior with respect to the H1N1 virus (swine flu) crisis of 2009 in general, and the U.S. mass vaccination program in particular. I argue that even seemingly nonpartisan political issues like public health are increasingly characterized by partisan polarization in public attitudes and that such polarization is attributable, at least partly, to the breakdown of the information commons that characterized the U.S. mass media from roughly the 1950s until the early 1990s. In its place has arisen an increasingly fragmented and niche-oriented media marketplace in which individuals are better able to limit their information exposure to attitudes and opinions that reinforce, rather than challenge, their preexisting beliefs. I test my argument against a variety of data sources, including opinion surveys and state-level swine flu vaccination rate data.

Red, Blue, and the Flu: Media Self-Selection and Partisan Gaps in Swine Flu Vaccinations

This study assesses the relationship between political partisanship and attitudes and behavior with respect to the Swine Flu crisis of 2009 in general, and the U.S. mass vaccination program in particular. I argue that even seemingly non-partisan political issues like public health are increasingly characterized by partisan polarization in public attitudes, and that such polarization is in part attributable, at least in part, to the breakdown of the information commons that characterized the American mass media from roughly the 1950s until the early 1990s. In its place has arisen an increasingly fragmented and niche-oriented media marketplace in which individuals are better able to limit their information exposure to attitudes and opinions that reinforce, rather than challenge, their preexisting beliefs. I test my argument against a variety of data sources, including opinion surveys and state level Swine Flu vaccination rate data.

Red States, Blue States, and Flu States: Media Self-Selection and Partisan Gaps in Swine Flu Vaccinations

This study assesses the relationship between political partisanship and attitudes and behavior with respect to the Swine Flu crisis of 2009 in general, and the U.S. mass vaccination program in particular. I argue that even seemingly non-partisan political issues like public health are increasingly characterized by partisan polarization in public attitudes, and that such polarization is attributable, at least in part, to the breakdown of the information commons that characterized the American mass media from roughly the 1950s until the early 1990s. In its place has arisen an increasingly fragmented and niche-oriented media marketplace in which individuals are better able to limit their information exposure to attitudes and opinions that reinforce, rather than challenge, their preexisting beliefs. The consequence in this instance was a substantial partisan gap in attitudes regarding the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak and in vaccination rates, with Republicans far less worried about the Swine Flu than Democrats and substantially less likely to seek the vaccination. I test my argument against a variety of data sources, including opinion surveys and state level Swine Flu vaccination rate data.

Seeing Gender over the Short and Long Haul

One might break research questions about gender and politics over time into two basic categories. On the one hand, there are questions that speak to processes unfolding, perhaps rather slowly, over time. In this long-haul category, we might find studies of such things as generational shifts in patterns of attitudes about gendered political roles (Jennings 2006) or of the development of gendered national identities with evolving constitutional interpretations (Ritter 2006). On the other hand, there are inquiries about the dynamics, or instability, of shorter-run patterns. These intellectual pursuits might include seeking to explain short-haul phenomena like changes in partisan gaps between men and women, perhaps even within the duration of a single campaign season (Sapiro and Conover 1997). Both categories, of course, are incredibly important realms of inquiry. My argument is for improvements in our studies of shorter-term dynamics and, ultimately, for the integration of studies of both short- and long-run processes, with improved measurement and modeling strategies as the crucial tools we need to get there.