Remember death panels? Freshly published research in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly examines the predictors of the death panel misperception and I'm gonna point out one main result:
Fox News, you did it again.
The research, by Patrick Meirick at the University of Oklahoma, used national survey data from 2009 to establish that watching Fox News, not other media outlets, led to belief in the myth. Hardly shocking, but here's the kicker. It do so -- only among highly educated respondents.
Huh? Education tends to be associated with greater political knowledge -- not belief in political myths. Enter into the fray a little thing called motivated reasoning. I've written in detail about this theory before, and I've used it in my own research (which, oddly best I can tell is not cited in this study ... tsk tsk). Essentially, the theory argues people believe what they want to believe, and the more they care about an outcome, the more they'll believe stuff that fits their predispositions, even if it's obviously bogus. Biased processing run amok.
The study includes a big fat multiple regression, which makes my data-crunching heart happy, but if you're not a number nerd let me translate. The author statistically controls for a number of factors you'd expect to lead to belief in the myth and the combo of watching Fox News and education pops out quite nicely.
Skip to the next graph if you're not into methodological quibbles: I'd argue he fails to account for political interest, but you could counter-argue that's captured by his "follow health reform news" variable, and then I'd counter-counter-argue that no, it doesn't -- that's a global media variable, not a motivational one, and if you included political interest, education might very well disappear. Yes, methodologists argue about stuff like this, which explains why we rarely get invited to parties.
If you dig into the table, you'll see other media variables basically play no role in this screwy belief. Only reading newspapers is statistically significant, and it's in the opposite direction of watching Fox News. In other words, newspaper reading reduced your likelihood to believe in the death panel myth, and it did so regardless of education level. Whew. Newspapers still rule.
Showing posts with label theory of motivated reasoning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theory of motivated reasoning. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
The More You Know, the More You Don't Know?
The more Republicans know about the politics, the more likely they believe in political conspiracy theories.This conclusion comes from an article in Mother Jones and relies on a survey conducted last month. More on that survey in a moment.
Here's the crux of the article:
Equivalent? I'm not convinced. But let's turn to the survey itself, a national poll of 814 registered voters conducted in December 2012. First, despite the claim, it's really a survey of people who say they're registered voters, but that's a methodological quibble. Political scientist Dan Cassino, who runs the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, says "birther" conspiracy theory is likely to believed more than others because "it's been discussed so often."
Yup. Two myths are anchored on Obama, are more recent, and received lots of mainstream media play -- mostly attempts to debunk them. I'd add here that there's a growing body of research that suggests attempts to debunk myths actually adds to their believability for some people, so I'd be damned cautious about arguing politically knowledgeable Republicans are more likely to believe "their" favorite myths compared to politically knowledgeable Democrats and "their" favorite myths.
And here's a point from Cassino's press release that doesn't comfortably fit the Republicans-are-evil-and-dumb narrative -- young African-Americans are more likely than whites to believe in conspiracy theories. Not sure how the hell you explain that one. Would you even want to try? Not me.
If we buy this set of conspiracy theories are equivalent (debatable) and if we buy into how the survey measures political knowledge (can't tell from the release), then the results raise a number of questions.
Allow me to get a bit PhDweebish below.
Greater political knowledge should result in less belief in conspiracies, but hold on. The theory of motivated reasoning suggests partisans, even knowledgeable ones, will be more likely to believe such myths. That's all partisans, not just one side of the divide. Essentially, people believe what they want to believe, especially when it's negative about someone they disagree with or dislike. So I maintain the Obama-anchored questions are not equivalent to the "truther" and "stolen election" questions. The latter are from several years ago, myths that received less mainstream news play by comparison -- and certainly damn little near the time the survey was conducted. This can skew your results.
Perhaps, and only perhaps, the Mother Jones article is a textbook instance of motivated reasoning, of seeing and believing what you want to believe -- in this case, about Republicans.
Here's the crux of the article:
Among Democrats and independents, having a higher level of political knowledge was correlated with decreased belief in conspiracies. But precisely the opposite was the case for Republicans, where knowledge actually made the problem worse. For each political knowledge question that they answered correctly, Republicans' belief in at least one conspiracy theory tended to increase by 2 percentage points.The article's author, Chris Mooney, knows his stuff. He suggests the reason may in part have to do with a conservative's greater need for "cognitive closure" and a need for certainty. A reasonable hypothesis, but I'd counter it has more to do with the nature of the conspiracies examined in the survey. The two "conservative" conspiracies are about Obama specifically, the two "liberal" conspiracies have to do with Bush stealing the 2000 election and "The Truther" movement about 9/11.
Equivalent? I'm not convinced. But let's turn to the survey itself, a national poll of 814 registered voters conducted in December 2012. First, despite the claim, it's really a survey of people who say they're registered voters, but that's a methodological quibble. Political scientist Dan Cassino, who runs the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, says "birther" conspiracy theory is likely to believed more than others because "it's been discussed so often."
Yup. Two myths are anchored on Obama, are more recent, and received lots of mainstream media play -- mostly attempts to debunk them. I'd add here that there's a growing body of research that suggests attempts to debunk myths actually adds to their believability for some people, so I'd be damned cautious about arguing politically knowledgeable Republicans are more likely to believe "their" favorite myths compared to politically knowledgeable Democrats and "their" favorite myths.
And here's a point from Cassino's press release that doesn't comfortably fit the Republicans-are-evil-and-dumb narrative -- young African-Americans are more likely than whites to believe in conspiracy theories. Not sure how the hell you explain that one. Would you even want to try? Not me.
If we buy this set of conspiracy theories are equivalent (debatable) and if we buy into how the survey measures political knowledge (can't tell from the release), then the results raise a number of questions.
Allow me to get a bit PhDweebish below.
Greater political knowledge should result in less belief in conspiracies, but hold on. The theory of motivated reasoning suggests partisans, even knowledgeable ones, will be more likely to believe such myths. That's all partisans, not just one side of the divide. Essentially, people believe what they want to believe, especially when it's negative about someone they disagree with or dislike. So I maintain the Obama-anchored questions are not equivalent to the "truther" and "stolen election" questions. The latter are from several years ago, myths that received less mainstream news play by comparison -- and certainly damn little near the time the survey was conducted. This can skew your results.
Perhaps, and only perhaps, the Mother Jones article is a textbook instance of motivated reasoning, of seeing and believing what you want to believe -- in this case, about Republicans.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Has the Birther Movement Peaked?
Despite a New York Times poll that finds a quarter of adults, and nearly half of all Republicans, believe President Barack Obama was born somewhere other than the U.S., I think we're seeing signs that the candles on the birther movement cake may be burning out. Yes, state legislators keep trying to keep the candles lit through various laws, but even Tea Party favorite U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann admitted, upon being shown Obama's certificate of live birth, that the issue appears to be "settled."
Donald Trump may not have gotten the inter-party memo, but I sense those at the top of the GOP, who are not above feeding the crazies (Dems too, in their own special way), are starting to edge away from the Cliffs of Despair.
In other words, I argue that the movement has peaked.
You'd hope so, with 45 percent of GOPers believing Obama was born somewhere other than where all official and semi-official evidence points -- Hawaii. Trump may have hijacked the issue for a while, but most folks assume this will play out when he ducks out of actually running for office.
A year ago, 20 percent of adults thought Obama was born elsewhere. Earlier this month it was at 24 percent. Now it's 25 percent. Not coincidentally, confidence in the U.S. has reached a two-year low. When things are bad, we latch on to easy answers. For many, it's easy to suspect the worst of someone, even a president, we may not particularly like at the moment. Policy reasons are hard, so we use something simpler and easier -- a heuristic, as social scientists would say -- and good ones are that Obama is secretly Muslim. Or born elsewhere. Or the Anti-Christ. Or whatever.
As the theory of motivated reasoning suggests, we often believe what we want to believe. Or as the article I linked to in the previous sentence says: "our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about."
And it's easier. Faster. And in many ways, satisfying because we have a bad guy to blame.
But let's face it. The only reason the movement has been trending up is Trump and a handful of others playing this tune, over and over, to the joy and chagrin of journalists. It's a fun story. But it's the wrong story.
In other words, I argue that the movement has peaked.
You'd hope so, with 45 percent of GOPers believing Obama was born somewhere other than where all official and semi-official evidence points -- Hawaii. Trump may have hijacked the issue for a while, but most folks assume this will play out when he ducks out of actually running for office.
A year ago, 20 percent of adults thought Obama was born elsewhere. Earlier this month it was at 24 percent. Now it's 25 percent. Not coincidentally, confidence in the U.S. has reached a two-year low. When things are bad, we latch on to easy answers. For many, it's easy to suspect the worst of someone, even a president, we may not particularly like at the moment. Policy reasons are hard, so we use something simpler and easier -- a heuristic, as social scientists would say -- and good ones are that Obama is secretly Muslim. Or born elsewhere. Or the Anti-Christ. Or whatever.
As the theory of motivated reasoning suggests, we often believe what we want to believe. Or as the article I linked to in the previous sentence says: "our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about."
And it's easier. Faster. And in many ways, satisfying because we have a bad guy to blame.
But let's face it. The only reason the movement has been trending up is Trump and a handful of others playing this tune, over and over, to the joy and chagrin of journalists. It's a fun story. But it's the wrong story.
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