Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion--interesting theory

Polit Behav (2014) 36:235–262

DOI 10.1007/s11109-013-9238-0

ORIGINAL PAPER

The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning

on Public Opinion

Toby Bolsen • James N. Druckman • Fay Lomax Cook

Published online: 4 July 2013

_ Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract 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 endorsement from a political

party—this is due in large part to what is called partisan motivated reasoning where

individuals interpret information through the lens of their party commitment. We

explore partisan motivated reasoning in a survey experiment focusing on support for

an energy law. We identify two politically relevant factors that condition partisan

motivated reasoning: (1) an explicit inducement to form an ‘‘accurate’’ opinion, and

(2) cross-partisan, but not consensus, bipartisan support for the law. We further

provide evidence of how partisan motivated reasoning works psychologically and

affects opinion strength. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results

for understanding opinion formation and the overall quality of citizens’ opinions.

Keywords Motivated reasoning _ Parties _ Partisan trust _ Experiment