Year: 2019
Type: article
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: Scholars often evaluate citizens' democratic competence by focusing on their ability to get relevant facts right. In this article, I show why this approach can yield misleading conclusions about citizen competence. I argue that although citizens with strong partisan loyalties might be forced to accept the same facts, they find alternative ways to rationalize reality. One such way, I show, is through the selective attribution of credit and blame. With four randomized experiments, conducted in diverse national settings and containing closed‐ as well as open‐ended questions, I find that as partisans correctly updated economic beliefs to reflect new facts, they conversely attributed responsibility in a highly selective fashion. Although partisans might acknowledge the same facts, they are apt in seizing on and producing attributional arguments that fit their preferred worldviews.
DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12432
Author: Martin Bisgaard
Institution: Aarhus University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond
OpenAlex ID: W2943467564