ingroup) denigration, participants also rated the personal traits (for example, compassion and patriotism) of the two groups of partisan supporters. To obtain a more general measure of outgroup (vs. The difference in these attributions comprised our measure of the objectivity illusion. The former included appropriate influences, such as knowledge of facts and history and careful consideration the latter included misinformation, self-interest, and other potential sources of bias. In the first stage ( n = 870), just prior to the first presidential debate, Trump supporters, Clinton supporters, and undecided voters made assessments about the normative versus nonnormative bases of the beliefs held by fellow citizens who supported each of the two candidates. Study 1, a longitudinal study, encompassed three stages spanning the presidential debates. Two studies explored these predicted manifestations and consequences of the objectivity illusion during the month and a half prior to Election Day in the 2016 election ( Fig. What follows, however, is the pernicious belief that those with different views are uninformed, misinformed, or unintelligent ( 23– 25), and are likely to have succumbed to cognitive or motivational biases to which “I,” and those who share “my” views and political allegiances, are relatively immune ( 26, 27). This conviction of course is somewhat tautological, for to believe a proposition is to think it reflects reality ( 22). Expressed in first-person terms, this illusion is the conviction that “my” particular perceptions and beliefs about the world are an objective reflection of reality ( 21). While these structural shifts undeniably play a role, the research we report in this paper explores a psychological phenomenon, the illusion of personal objectivity ( 17– 20), that we propose exacerbates negative intergroup sentiments and polarization. Social scientists attribute such heightened polarization, and accompanying enmity and distrust, to numerous social, political, and economic factors, as well as changes in media ( 12– 16). At a time of particular political division and distrust in America, these findings point to the exacerbating role played by the illusion of objectivity. These ratings were again associated with polarization and, additionally, with the willingness to characterize supporters of the opposing candidate as evil and likely to commit acts of terrorism. A second study conducted 2 d before the election showed similar perceptions of objectivity versus bias in ratings of blog authors favoring the candidate participants personally supported or opposed. These associations, furthermore, remained significant even after controlling for baseline levels of partisanship. This study broke new ground by demonstrating that the degree to which partisans displayed the objectivity illusion predicted subsequent bias in their perception of debate performance and polarization in their political attitudes over time, as well as closed-mindedness and antipathy toward political adversaries. In the first, a three-stage longitudinal study spanning the presidential debates, supporters of the two candidates exhibited a large and generally symmetrical tendency to rate supporters of the candidate they personally favored as more influenced by appropriate (i.e., “normative”) considerations, and less influenced by various sources of bias than supporters of the opposing candidate.
Two studies conducted during the 2016 presidential campaign examined the dynamics of the objectivity illusion, the belief that the views of “my side” are objective while the views of the opposing side are the product of bias.
0 kommentar(er)
