The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion

• Published in: Political behavior Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 235 - 262
• Main Authors: Bolsen, Toby, Druckman, James N., Cook, Fay Lomax
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer Science+Business Media LLC 01.06.2014; Springer US; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bipartisanship; Citizens; Cognition & reasoning; Decision Making; Democracy; Energy; Energy policy; Experiments; Identification; Law; Motivation; Motivation research; Original Paper; Partisanship; Political Parties; Political partisanship; Political Science; Political Science and International Relations; Political Science and International Studies; Psychology; Public Opinion; Public opinion surveys; Reasoning; Sociology; Trust; Parties; Motivated reasoning; Partisan trust; Experiment

Political parties play a vital role in democracies by linking citizens to their representatives. Nonetheless, a longstanding concern is that partisan identification slants decision-making. Citizens may support (oppose) policies that they would otherwise oppose (support) in the absence of an endorsem...