Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs

Charles S. Taber and Milton Lodge

American Journal of Political Science, 2006, vol. 50, issue 3, 755-769

Abstract: We propose a model of motivated skepticism that helps explain when and why citizens are biased‐information processors. Two experimental studies explore how citizens evaluate arguments about affirmative action and gun control, finding strong evidence of a prior attitude effect such that attitudinally congruent arguments are evaluated as stronger than attitudinally incongruent arguments. When reading pro and con arguments, participants (Ps) counterargue the contrary arguments and uncritically accept supporting arguments, evidence of a disconfirmation bias. We also find a confirmation bias—the seeking out of confirmatory evidence—when Ps are free to self‐select the source of the arguments they read. Both the confirmation and disconfirmation biases lead to attitude polarization—the strengthening of t2 over t1 attitudes—especially among those with the strongest priors and highest levels of political sophistication. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of these findings for rational behavior in a democracy.

Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (231)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:amposc:v:50:y:2006:i:3:p:755-769

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Political Science from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().