tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post5780452106096690388..comments2023-10-15T08:33:17.704-04:00Comments on What People Know: The More You Know, the More You Don't Know?Hollanderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07388479139384630638noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post-18683917337892266392013-01-28T17:05:49.927-05:002013-01-28T17:05:49.927-05:00Hi Dan. Was wondering if you'd stumble across...Hi Dan. Was wondering if you'd stumble across this blog. I agree it's hard to come up with a comparable conspiracy theory to those about Obama. In fact, I'm not sure we'll ever see a president spawn more theories than Obama, for all the obvious reasons, but also because our time -- and the Internet -- seems to nurture such theories. I'd also guess, with no data handy, that Republicans have more affect against the other guy than Democrats do, at least now. When George W. Bush was president, it'd probably be the other way around.Hollanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07388479139384630638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post-28013378175094117702013-01-28T16:55:22.440-05:002013-01-28T16:55:22.440-05:00Dan Cassino here- I've actually written quite ...Dan Cassino here- I've actually written quite a bit about motivated reasoning, and what you're describing is exactly what I was trying to explore with the poll. What's interesting to me is that there does seem to be some degree of asymmetry in the extent of the motivated reasoning- Mooney correctly cited a 2006 Political Psychology article I did with Matt Lebo that showed similar effects. I'd argue the asymmetry is mostly due to asymmetries in how motivated partisans are: Republicans generally have stronger affect towards their own candidates than Democrats do towards theirs. As to why that is- well, Mooney likes the Need For Closure arguments, I'm not so sure.<br />I agree that the conspiracy theories aren't directly comparable- in pretesting, they were as close as we could be. No one remembers Vince Foster for some reason!DRChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11615930376707848409noreply@blogger.com