Motivated Reasoning and Political Parties:
Evidence for Increased Processing in the Face of Party Cues
Michael Bang Petersen
Department of Political Science
Aarhus University
Denmark
Email: michael@ps.au.dk
Martin Skov
Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance
Copenhagen University Hospital
Denmark
Email: mskov01@gmail.com
Søren Serritzlew
Department of Political Science
Aarhus University
Denmark
Email: soren@ps.au.dk
Thomas Ramsøy
Decision Neuroscience Research Group
Copenhagen Business School
Denmark
Email: tzramsoy@gmail.com
Forthcoming in Political Behavior in 2013
Extant research in political science has demonstrated that citizens’ opinions on policies are influenced by their attachment to the party sponsoring them. At the same time, little evidence exists illuminating the psychological processes through which such party cues are filtered. From the psychological literature on source cues, we derive two possible hypotheses: (1) party cues activate heuristic processing aimed at minimizing the processing effort during opinion formation, and (2) party
cues activate group motivational processes that compel citizens to support the position of their party. As part of the latter processes, the presence of party cues would make individuals engage in effortful motivated reasoning to produce arguments for the correctness of their party’s position. Following psychological research, we use response latency to measure processing effort and, in support of the motivated reasoning hypothesis, demonstrate that across student and nationally representative samples, the presence of party cues increases processing effort.
Key words: Public Opinion; Political Parties; Party Cues; Motivated Reasoning; Heuristic
Processing
1
Political parties play an important role in the structuring of mass opinion. Research demonstrates
how citizens’ opinions on policies are influenced not only by the content of the specific policies but
also by their attachment to the party sponsoring them. Longitudinal studies show that changes in
partisan discourse on important issues such as race or abortion shape aggregate mass opinion (Layman and Carsey 1998; Zaller 1992). Similarly, a large number of micro-level studies demonstrate
that individuals’ opinions about policy proposals change substantially when they are provided with
information about party positions (see, e.g., Cohen 2003; Kam 2005; Lau and Redlawsk 2001;
Mondak 1993). This does not mean that party sponsorship is the most important, let alone the only,
predictor of citizens’ opinion on policies. Bullock (2011) argues that many studies comparing the
effect of party cues with policy information tend to underestimate the relative effect of policy information as only sparse information is provided. He also shows in two experiments that with substantial policy information, “party cues are influential” but that policy information generally matters
at least as much (2011: 512). Nevertheless, party cues remain an important factor for citizen’s opinions. If citizens like the party advocating the policy, they are more likely to agree with it; if they
dislike the party, they are more likely to reject the policy.
Research on this party sponsor effect suggests that it helps citizens form political opinions in the
absence of political knowledge and interest (Kam 2005; Zaller 1992). By delegating their decisions
to ‘like-minded experts’, citizens reduce the costs of collecting information on, for example, the
technical details of the policy and of analysing its effects. In fact, some studies suggest that citizens
can often form just as valid an opinion on the basis of their party’s position as on the basis of a more
careful assessment of the policy itself (Lau and Redlawsk 2006). At the same time, other studies
have argued that this only holds true for policies on which parties hold positions in line with their
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normal ideological profile. On other policies, reliance on party positions can result in a biased opinion (Rahn 1993; Cohen 2003; Greitemeyer et al. 2009).
Research on the effects of citizens’ reliance on party positions has provided important insights into
how citizens are able to navigate in modern politics. At the same time, this research has provided
less insight into the psychological processes that these cues rely on and are processed by. Research
on the psychology of opinion formation suggests that two different psychological processes may
explain citizens’ reliance on a source cue such as a party’s position on a policy. The first process,
heuristic processing, minimizes the processing costs involved in opinion formation while the second
process, motivated directional reasoning (or for short, motivated reasoning), invest cognitive effort
in defending valued pre-commitments such as one’s party identification (e.g., by spending effort to
produce convincing arguments for giving into the motivational pull of one’s identification) (Eagly
and Chaiken 1993; Kunda 1990). While a few studies have suggested that motivated reasoning
drives the processing of party cues (Cohen 2003; Slothuus and de Vreese 2010; Westen et al. 2006),
Bullock (2011: 497) sums up the current state of the literature by arguing that party cues “are widely thought to be processed heuristically”. Yet, until now, studies on party cues in political science
have not focused directly on the psychological processing of party cues and, hence, have failed to
discern between the different possibilities. This is unfortunate because the two processes are
grounded in different types of motivations and paints very different pictures of citizens’ basic relation to politics. This is particularly evident in the cases where reliance on the party sponsor results
in a biased opinion. If party sponsor effects originate in heuristic processing, citizens are basically
motivated to hold accurate opinions (Mondak 1993; Lau and Redlawsk 2006), and partisan bias in
opinion formation is just an unfortunate by-product of citizens’ lack of political interest. Hence, if
citizens became more interested or were provided with more valid but still cost-effective cues, the
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bias would be reduced. In contrast, if party sponsor effects originate in motivated reasoning, citizens are seen as motivated to be biased, making partisan bias inevitable (Taber and Lodge 2006).
In this article, we utilize research on group psychology and party identification to suggest that citizens engage in motivated reasoning rather than heuristic processing when confronted with novel
policy proposals sponsored by different political parties. Empirically, we report the results of two
tests designed to discern directly between the two psychological processes in the context of party
sponsor effects. We use an experimental design to gauge the psychological dynamics during opinion
formation in the face of party cues, which is innovative in terms of both measurement and sampling.
To discern between heuristic processing and motivated reasoning, we follow extant research and use
response latency (Redlawsk 2002; Cohen 2003; Taber and Lodge 2006). If party cues activate heuristic processing, the presence of party cues should decrease the mental effort and time required to
form opinions. If, in contrast, party cues activate motivated reasoning, opinion formation should
under specific circumstances become more mentally effortful and, therefore, prolonged (Matz and
Wood 2005). In terms of sampling, we collected response latencies across two highly diverse samples. In a laboratory setting, we collected response latencies from a student sample. Outside the laboratory, we used a web survey to collect response latencies from a representative sample. This allowed us to ensure the robustness and generalizability of our results to the actual population of citizens.
Our empirical findings show that the presence of party cues prolongs response times, lending support to the motivated reasoning account rather than the heuristic processing account. This suggests
that one reason that citizens rely on party positions is a group-based motivation to appear loyal to
4
the policy line of ‘their’ party. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for
understanding citizens’ engagement in party politics.
Party Cues and Modes of Processing
When political parties sponsor a policy, citizens are provided with what is termed a source cue in
the psychological literature on persuasion (Petty and Cacioppo 1981). As mentioned, studies in psychology have identified two modes of psychological processing through which a source cue can be
integrated into an assessment of a persuasive statement: heuristic processing and motivated (directional) reasoning.
Eagly and Chaiken (1993) define heuristic processing as a mode of processing requiring “less effort
and fewer cognitive resources”, where individuals focus “on that subset of the available information
that enables them to use simple decision rules (…) to formulate their judgments and decisions”. In
the context of political policies, such a decision rule could relate to the party sponsor: If you like the
party, support the policy; if you dislike the party, reject the policy. Heuristic processing is a processing strategy designed to achieve an opinion with a satisfactory level of accuracy using a minimal level of cognitive effort. Research has demonstrated that heuristic processing is deployed in
situations in which the individual lacks motivation and capacity to perform a more careful assessment of the available information (e.g., Petty et al. 1981; Eagley and Chaiken 1993). Given the high
levels of political ignorance in modern electorates (Lau & Redlawsk 2006; Zaller 1992), many researchers have suggested that heuristic processing plays an important role when citizens rely upon
party cues (Bullock 2011). For example, party cues have been described as the “‘cheapest’ cue
5
available” (Schafner and Streb 2002: 560), “the most important saving device” (Squire and Smith
1988: 178) and a means to an “obvious cognitive saving” (Lau and Redlawsk 2001: 953).
Where heuristic processing involves minimal effort to arrive at a correct or accurate opinion, directional motivated reasoning involves the exertion of effort to come up with arguments for why a
conclusion that is desired for antecedent reasons is indeed the correct one (Kunda 1990). Here, reasoning effort operates in the service of motivation to search through memory for arguments, beliefs
and rules that would support the desired conclusion. In the context of party sponsor effects, motivated reasoning would entail that citizens spend effort to come up with reasons for supporting policies that are sponsored by a party they like. Importantly, motivation is not always expected to be
assisted by reasoning. Rather, effortful processing is strategically deployed to reach a desired conclusion in dissonance-provoking situations where an individual holds incongruent beliefs related to
the conclusion. If motivated reasoning processes influence the processing of party cues, this implies
that reasoning effort should be deployed when individuals are motivated to, for example, support
policies that they do not like because they are sponsored by a party that they do like. Expressing
support for a policy that is attractive in itself and sponsored by the favoured party should, in contrast, not require much effort.
Group Psychology and Motivated Processing of Party Cues
While researchers have tended to view party cues as being processed through heuristic processing
(cf. Bullock 2011), several political scientists have, at the same time, argued that partisanship reflects a distinct group attachment that is psychologically important to many citizens (Campbell et al.
1960; Lebo and Cassino 2007; Green et al. 2002; Greene 1999). Hence, partisan attachments are –
6
like other group attachments – formed early in life, transmitted across generations, endure over the
life-span and in the face of significant changes in the environment, and are (to some extent, at least)
independent of other important political predispositions such as core ideological values (Jennings
and Niemi 1974, 1981; Green et al. 2002; Goren 2005). Recent cross-disciplinary studies have provided additional evidence for the deep-seated nature of party attachments. One study, for example,
showed that subjects’ testosterone levels were altered as a response to election outcomes wherein
their party suffered defeat, in the same way as when they themselves would suffer an actual status
loss (Stanton et al. 2009). Other studies have shown how party cues are processed by brain regions
associated with affective processes operating below the level of consciousness (Westen et al. 2004)
and that experimental participants, even though substantially influenced by party cues, think of
them as the least influential factor when asked directly (Cohen 2003).
If political parties are psychologically represented as groups, the implication is that whenever a
liked party takes a position on an issue, it is mentally represented as a claim for support from the
group to which one belongs. This would trigger a motivation to provide such support by toeing the
party line and, if necessary, invest cognitive effort in coming up with arguments for the correctness
of doing so. Hence, the studies on the group psychological basis of party identification provide initial reasons for expecting motivated reasoning processes rather than heuristic processing to be at the
heart of the party sponsor effect.
To provide direct tests of this proposed importance of motivated reasoning, we focus on the processing effort underlying opinion formation in the face of party cues. Heuristic processing and motivated reasoning entail opposite effects of the presence of party cues on the level of processing involved in forming opinions. If party cues are processed using heuristic processing, the availability
7
of party cues should minimize the effort invested in processing. In contrast, if party cues tap into the
group psychology of citizens, motivated reasoning should in specific circumstances make opinion
formation in the face of party cues more effortful. In particular, motivated reasoning is expected to
kick in when a motivated individual faces dissonance-provoking situations (Kunda 1990). To the
extent that political parties tap into group psychological mechanisms, the presence of party cues
will elicit dissonance and trigger motivated reasoning in at least two situations: when an individual
disagrees with a liked party and when an individual agrees with a liked party on an otherwise disliked policy.
First, citizens who sympathize with a party should feel compelled to meet the party’s claim for support. Therefore, turning the party down should result in dissonance, giving rise to increased processing aimed at resolving the experienced dissonance and to explain away the decision. Hence, we
predict that in the face of party cues, disagreeing (relative to agreeing) with a liked party (relative to
other parties) should, in general, be associated with increased reasoning effort (the Rejection Hypothesis). From the group perspective, this prediction must, by necessity, be valid as signals of disloyalty should trigger dissonance (Matz and Wood 2005). Still, it might be possible to specify a
similar prediction from a heuristic processing perspective. From that perspective, an increased effort
among those who disagree with an otherwise liked party may reflect a failure to utilize the party cue
rather than reflecting attempts to come up with good arguments for letting down the party (Kam
2005). If the group-oriented interpretation is correct, however, it should be possible to demonstrate
that the added cognitive effort is directly related to concerns about their standing within the group
of party supporters.
8
The next prediction more directly discerns between the motivated reasoning and the heuristic processing perspective. According to the heuristic processing account, citizens should limit cognitive
effort when toeing the party line. In contrast, the motivated reasoning hypothesis implies that under
specific circumstances, individuals are willing to exert effort in order to toe the party line. Research
on small-group psychology shows that individuals psychologically represent group support as an
exchange in which support for the group buys support from the group (Habyarimana et al. 2007;
Yamagishi and Mifune 2008). On this perspective, the costs involved in an act of support become
important. As the costs of support increase, the distress associated with granting it should increase
as well. In the context of political parties, one important cost of support relates to the extent to
which citizens are required to sacrifice other cherished predispositions such as ideological principles in order to toe the party line on a specific issue. For example, to the extent that the Democratic
Party adopts a conservative position on an issue, supporters of the Democratic Party are required to
sacrifice their liberal principles in order to agree with the party on this issue. When a liked party in
this way sponsors a party-inconsistent proposal, two things should happen simultaneously: First,
citizens should still, to a significant extent, toe the party line, and studies have indeed demonstrated
that party supporters do follow their party even in situations where a party adopts policies that are at
odds with its normal ideological profile (Cohen 2003; Greitemeyer at al. 2009; Rahn 1993). Second,
from a motivated reasoning perspective, agreeing with a liked party on such proposals should trigger reasoning effort in order to come up with reasons for bearing the high costs of support (Cohen
2003). In fact, when these ideological costs become high enough, it might require more reasoning
effort to agree than to disagree with the party. Given this, we predict that, in the face of party cues,
agreeing with a liked party should be experienced as effortful when citizens are required to sacrifice
ideological principles in order to do so (the Costly Support Hypothesis).
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Previous research has demonstrated that the presence of incongruent information in itself induces
reasoning effort (Huckfeldt et al. 2005; Redlawsk 2002). When a party adopts a party-inconsistent
policy the inconsistency will, in other words, in itself trigger effort. This most likely reflects a form
of learning effect where participants try to integrate the new information with their previous understandings. Note, however, how the motivated reasoning perspective moves beyond this observation.
The prediction is not simply that the presence of party-inconsistent proposals triggers effort (i.e.,
that the party inconsistency of the proposal has a major effect on effort) or even that the presence of
party-inconsistent proposals from a liked party triggers effort (i.e., a two-way interaction between
party inconsistency and party attachment). Rather, the prediction here is that agreeing with highly
party-inconsistent proposals from parties is more effortful than disagreeing (which amounts to a
three-way interaction between party inconsistency, party attachment and level of agreement on effort). In more simple terms, the motivated reasoning perspective predicts that individuals increase
their reasoning effort when they are motivated to abandon ideological beliefs in order to follow
their party’s line. In order to signal loyalty to the group, citizens should nonetheless be willing to
pay this price and, hence, toe the party line even on party-inconsistent proposals.1
The Rejection Hypothesis and the Costly Support Hypothesis describe two mechanisms through
which the presence of party cues can trigger motivated reasoning. When parties claim support by
adopting positions on an issue, citizens’ opinion formation becomes more effortful to the extent that
citizens fail to meet the claim for support or citizens provide the support at high costs. Therefore,
we generally expect that opinion formation is more effortful when party cues are available.
1
To the extent that we are able to provide evidence for this role of agreement with a policy in modulating reasoning
effort, this would be very hard to account for in a learning perspective. The unexpectedness of a piece of information
(and, hence, the need to learn it) should be independent of whether one agrees or disagrees with that information. At
least, if anything, it makes more sense to argue that an incongruent policy from a liked party is more unexpected (and,
hence, requires more learning effort) if the individual disagrees with that policy. The motivated reasoning perspective,
however, makes the directly opposite prediction: that agreeing with an incongruent policy from a liked party is more
effortful.
10
These predictions follow directly from the motivated reasoning perspective on the party sponsor
effect. In particular, The Costly Support Hypothesis and the expectation that party cues make opinion formation more effortful violate the heuristic processing perspective, as such a processing mode
entails that the presence of party cues makes opinion formation smoother and less difficult. Hence,
empirical support for these predictions will favour the motivated reasoning perspective over the
heuristic processing perspective.
Measurement and Design
Researchers in political science increasingly call for greater reliance on implicit measures (i.e.,
measures that do not require introspection) when dealing with deep psychological processes that
evade conscious thought or, especially relevant in our case, are ridden with social desirability concerns (Burdein et al. 2006; McDermott 2007). To assess effort during opinion formation, we compare response latencies; that is, the time interval between stimulus onset and the individual’s response (Fazio 1990). Measuring response latency is a standard implicit method in psychology when
seeking to assess conflict-induced effort (e.g., Payne et al. 1990; van Harreveld et al. 2004) and has
also been used in political science research to measure the level of processing during opinion formation (Bassili 1993, 1995; Huckfeldt et al. 1999; Huckfeldt and Sprague 2000; Huckfeldt et al.
2005; Mulligan et al. 2003). As an implicit measure, response latency has the great advantage of
allowing us to measure effort as it unfolds (i.e., during the formation of opinion) rather than relying
on subjects’ post-hoc rationalizations. Specifically, increased response time is a tell-tale marker of
increased processing and effort during opinion formation: longer response latency implies increased
11
processing demands. Hence, our basic approach in testing our three predictions is to examine the
effects on response latency of the specified factors.
Using response latency poses other difficulties in terms of sampling, however. On the one hand, it is
important to maximize the reliability of the measurement of response time. This speaks for conducting laboratory experiments, with all the practical limitations on sample representativeness this
method entails. On the other hand, the theory we propose is general and, hence, it is important to
test whether at least parts of the proposed effects can be traced in all voter segments. This speaks for
prioritizing the external validity of the studies, allowing us to generalize the results to voters in general. To solve this quandary, we conducted two separate studies, each maximizing either the reliability of measurement or the external validity. Specifically, Study 1 prioritized generalizability and
tested the Rejection Hypothesis using a nationally representative sample with response latency collected over the Internet. Study 2 prioritized reliable measurement and was conducted in a laboratory
with a student sample. In Study 2, the test of the Rejection Hypothesis was replicated and, in addition, the more fine-grained measurement allowed us to test the Costly Support Hypothesis.
Study 1
Study 1 was designed to provide an externally valid test of the Rejection Hypothesis, and was based
on an experiment embedded in a web survey collected by YouGov Zapera in December 2007 among
1605 Danish citizens aged 18-74 and with a response rate of 61 per cent (RR1). Subjects were recruited from YouGov Zapera’s standing web panel. To ensure national representativeness, quota
sampling on sex, age, and geographical location was used.2
2
See Table A1 in the online appendix for further information on sample representativeness.
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Given the proposed existence of psychological motivations to meet claims for support from one’s
group, it follows from the Rejection Hypothesis that disagreeing with a liked party is, in general,
experienced as more difficult than agreeing. Testing the Rejection Hypothesis prediction requires
two independent variables: measures of agreement with the proposed policy and measures of the
degree of attachment to the party sponsor. As discussed, response latency is used to gauge the dependent variable, level of effort in forming an opinion on the policy. Given our prediction, we expected the two independent variables to interact in their effect on response latency such that disagreeing, compared to agreeing, becomes increasingly effortful with higher sympathy for the sponsor.
Data and measures
The experiment in Study 1 consisted of two (randomly assigned) conditions manipulating the party
sponsor of a specific policy proposal on which the subjects were asked to state their opinion.3 The
parties used were the Socialist People’s Party (SPP) and the Danish People’s Party (DPP), which are
two major parties of the left- and right-wing blocs, respectively. The policy, which was presented as
sponsored by either of the two parties, was: “The [Socialist People’s Party / Danish People’s Party]
has proposed that local governments test the language skills of all bilingual children and distribute
children with poor Danish skills to schools with fewer bilinguals.” This policy relates to the issue of
ethnic integration. In general, SPP and DPP hold contrasting positions on the issue of integration
but, importantly, the specific policy was chosen so that both parties could convincingly be envisioned proposing it. First, the specific policy can be understood as perfectly consistent with the general integration policy of both parties. SPP, which generally holds more lenient positions on integra3
To investigate whether the randomization procedure worked, we tested, using Chi 2, whether subjects in the two conditions differed on gender, age, geographical region, and vote choice. None of the tests revealed any significant differences (p-values ranged from .10 to .75)
13
tion issues, can plausibly support this position because language tests and distribution of children
with poor Danish skills to other schools can be understood as a policy designed to help these children in learning Danish. DPP, which generally holds a stricter position, can plausibly accept the
position because it can be seen as a requirement from society that bilinguals are integrated in ordinary Danish schools. Second, the change in national law allowing for adopting such policies at the
municipal level was supported by DPP. Following that, a SPP mayor has promoted and supported
the policy in the municipality of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. We infer from this that the policy
can plausibly be sponsored by both parties.
To measure agreement with the two parties, subjects where asked “Do you agree or disagree with
the proposal from the [Socialist People’s Party / Danish People’s Party]?” The answer was measured on a 7-point scale with the respective endpoints labelled “completely disagree” and “completely agree”. To measure party attachments, we obtained ratings of sympathy toward each party (“Do
you like or dislike the following parties?”) on an 11-point scale with endpoints labelled “Really
dislike the party” and “Really like the party”. These ratings were obtained before exposure to the
experiment. Prior research clearly indicates that such ‘thermometer ratings’ of sympathy are the
most reliable indicators of party attachments in multiparty systems such as the Danish (see Rosema
2006).4 Following previous research on party sponsor effects (Kam 2005), we use a collapsed
measure of party sympathy in the analyses. Specifically, we created a measure, termed Sympathy
4
Some researchers in American politics propose distinguishing between party identification and related measures (see,
e.g., Green et al., 2002). However, not only do sympathy scores seem to be more valid indicators of party attachments
in multiparty systems (Rosema, 2006), the classic way of measuring party identification (developed as it is in a twoparty system) creates other methodological problems. Because of the abundance of parties, it will always be a minority
of subjects who explicitly label themselves as identifiers with any two parties. In this respect, sympathy scores are preferable because they allow us to gauge fine-grained differences in levels of attachment between all subjects rather than
simply lumping most of our subjects into one big ‘non-identifier’ category. At the same time, using sympathy scores
should not make much difference as these measures are highly collinear with measures of party identification. In the
survey, we also obtained the classic measure of party identification. 187 subjects identified either with the SPP or DPP.
The correlations between sympathy scores and identifying with DPP compared to SPP are -.92 (p < 0.000) in the case of
sympathy for SPP and .95 (p < 0.000) in the case of sympathy for DPP.
14
for Party, tapping the sympathy for the party sponsoring the proposal in the subjects’ specific experimental condition. Thus, for subjects in the condition in which the policy was proposed by the Socialist People’s Party, this measure reflects sympathy for the Socialist People’s Party and, reversely,
it reflects sympathy for the Danish People’s Party for subjects in the other condition.5
To measure response time, we collected the time lapse – for each subject – from the policy’s appearance on screen to the subject had stated his or her level of agreement and continued to the next
screen. This is unquestionably a noisy measure; most prominently because information needs to
travel back and forth over the web and, hence, will be affected by factors such as the speed of the
subjects’ Internet connection. To reduce noise in the data, we followed prior studies (Petersen et al.
2011; Petersen et al. 2012) and used ranked response latencies rather than the exact response latency in milliseconds such that the fastest respondent is assigned the lowest value on the ranked variable, the second fastest the second lowest value and so forth. All measures have been rescaled between 0 and 1. There is independent evidence that this manoeuvre does in fact reduce measurement
noise. Two likely candidates for influencing response latency (age and level of education) do not
correlate in any way with the raw response latency (age: r=.004, p=.86; education: r=-.02, p = .38)
but show correlations with ranked response latency (age: r=.12, p =.000; education: r=-.08, p=.001).
Results: testing the rejection hypothesis
5
This measurement not only follows extant research but is also the most parsimonious way to test our predictions. It
could, however, be deemed inadequate for two reasons. First, it builds on the assumption that the effect of sympathy is
similar across the two conditions (i.e., in the face of both SPP and the DPP). Second, at the outset, it does not allow us
to directly test whether the predicted effects arise from sympathizing specifically with the sponsor or from sympathizing
with just any party. Importantly, we deal thoroughly with both issues below (see endnotes 3 and 6). Here, we directly
verify that the effects are indifferent across the two conditions and are related to sympathizing specifically with the
sponsor.
15
As we attempt to explain the processing modes underlying party sponsor effects, it is relevant to
start by investigating whether we in fact obtain this in Study 1. In support, we find a correlation of
.44 (p < 0.000) between party sympathy and level of agreement. Subjects are, in other words, much
more prone to agree with the proposal when it is sponsored by a party they like. According to the
Rejection Hypothesis, one reason is that disagreeing with one’s party (a sign of disloyalty) is associated with dissonance that requires increased reasoning efforts to explain away. Specifically, the
Rejection Hypothesis states that disagreeing relative to agreeing with a party becomes increasingly
effortful the more subjects like the party sponsor.
To test our hypothesis, we regress response latency on agreement with the party, sympathy for the
party, and the two-way interaction between these measures (see Table 1). As expected, we find a
significant two-way interaction.6 To gauge the substance of this effect, the predicted values together
with 95 per cent confidence intervals are plotted in Figure 1. The two lines in Figure 1 represent the
response of agreeing completely and disagreeing completely with the party, respectively, and show
how the effects of disagreeing relative to agreeing change with changing levels of sympathy for the
party. To estimate the evidence for the Rejection Hypothesis, we need to focus on the difference
between the two lines and, hence, whether disagreeing compared to agreeing becomes more difficult as the sympathy increases. For disagreement with a statement (the grey line), the response time
increases with increasing sympathy and, in reverse, for agreement with a statement (the black line),
the response time decreases with increasing sympathy. The net outcome is that among those sympa-
6
Additional analyses demonstrate that this effect of party sympathy is, first, the same across the two parties used in the
study (i.e., whether the policy was sponsored by SPP or by DPP) and, second, specifically linked to sympathy for the
sponsor rather than sympathy for any party. Specifically, we created a measure of sympathy for the non-sponsor (e.g.,
sympathy for DDP when SPP sponsored the policy). We then added two three-way interaction terms to the model presented in Table 1 with all lower-order terms between, first, agreement, party sympathy, and party sponsor (to test
whether the effect was the same across conditions) and, second, agreement, sympathy for non-sponsor, and party sponsor (to test whether the effects were specifically linked to sympathy for the sponsor). Consistent with our expectations,
only one interaction term emerged as significant from this extended model: the interaction between party sympathy and
agreement (F=6.22; p = .01).
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thizing with the party sponsor of a policy, there is a marked difference in response latency between
agreeing and disagreeing, such that disagreeing takes significantly longer than agreeing. Hence, in
support of the Rejection Hypothesis, disagreeing with a liked party is effortful. The substantive effect cannot readily be inferred from Figure 1, as it shows ranked latencies rather than actual latencies in seconds in answers. Response latencies at rank .4 has a response time of 13,440 milliseconds
at rank .5 (the median) 14,930, and at .6, it is 16,490 milliseconds. In other words, the figure shows
a substantive effect in the range of 1-2 seconds when comparing latencies for party sympathizers
disagreeing with the statement with party sympathizers agreeing.7
These results support our hypothesis that turning down claims for support from one’s group creates
mental dissonance, which, in turn, facilitates a more effortful opinion formation process, presumably because the voter has to carefully evaluate the alternatives and reconcile to the final outcome.
This result is in line with psychological research on group dynamics (Matz and Wood 2005) and
lends support to the hypothesis that party cues are processed through motivated reasoning processes. Still, one could make a case for the Rejection Hypothesis from a heuristic processing perspective
as the increased effort associated with disagreeing with one’s party could be interpreted as a failure
to utilize the cue at hand and, hence, a more effortful opinion formation process would ensue (e.g.,
Kam 2005).
To test this alternative interpretation, we collected a measure for an additional analysis. Hence, the
group psychological account entails that the increased effort induced by disagreeing with a liked
party reflects reasoning related to one’s standing in the group after signs of disloyalty. To directly
test this, we obtained a measure of the subjects’ perceived alignment with supporters of the sponsor7
We also tested whether this interaction was robust to the inclusion of key demographic variables and included
measures of gender, age, education, and geographical location. If anything, these controls increased the effect of the
two-way interaction (after control: F=14.91, p<.001; before control: F=10.41, p=.001).
17
ing party (subjects indicated on an 11-point scale the extent to which they thought of themselves
and supporters of the party as alike; for the analyses, this variable was recoded to vary between 01). This item was asked right after subjects had indicated whether they agreed or disagreed with the
party and, hence, we were able to directly test how increased effort among those disagreeing with a
liked party relates to perceptions of one’s standing within the group of party supporters. We found a
significant three-way interaction effect between response latency, agreement with the party, and
sympathy for the party on the perceived alignment between oneself and party supporters (F=4.1,
p=.04). For those who disagreed with a liked party, a negative correlation was found between perceived alignment and response latency (b = -.15 for those completely disagreeing with a proposal
sponsored by a party for which they had maximum sympathy; see Table A2 in the online appendix
for the full, specified model). As expected, if effort reflects reasoning related to concerns about
one’s standing in the group after disagreement, increased effort is related to a decrease in perceived
alignment between oneself and other party supporters.
An alternative interpretation of this additional analysis in line with the heuristic perspective could
be that respondents see the policy statements as new information on the parties. Learning from this
new information, they react by seeing themselves less in line with the party. While this interpretation cannot be entirely ruled out, we do not find it very likely. If the increased effort reflects learning rather than dissonance, we should expect the effect to be greatest among those most likely to
acquire new information from the policy statements. This should be among those with the lowest
level of initial information, the least politically aware subjects (Kam 2005; Zaller 1992). Hence, we
obtained measures of political awareness using five factual questions about politics and have tested
the existence of a three-way interaction between party sympathy, agreement (cf. the Rejection Hypothesis), and this scale of political awareness on response time. This three-way interaction is high-
18
ly insignificant (F=.22; p=.64), implying that the effects exist independently of the political awareness of the subject. In other words, increased effort is not confined among those most likely to acquire new information.
In sum, consistent with the Rejection Hypothesis, Study 1 demonstrates that disagreeing with a
liked party induces cognitive effort, and, consistent with the group-oriented interpretation, we have
demonstrated that this increased effort is related to concerns about one’s alignment with other party
supporters.
Study 2
With the Rejection Hypothesis supported, we move on to the Costly Support Hypothesis. It states
that agreeing with a liked party (i.e., using the party cue in the heuristic perspective) elicits effortful
motivated reasoning when the ideological costs of doing so are high. From a group psychological
perspective, providing support for one’s party is psychologically represented as an act of buying
support for oneself, and therefore, decisions for support should be cost sensitive. Furthermore, the
psychological dynamics underlying the Rejection and the Costly Support Hypotheses imply that
opinion formation in the presence of party cues is more effortful than opinion formation in their
non-presence. Quite simply, as entailed by the Rejection and the Costly Support Hypotheses, the
presence of group cues adds a whole range of difficult considerations that must be overcome
through motivated reasoning processes.
These predictions are tested in Study 2 in which response latency, again, is used to measure effort
during opinion formation. To be able to gauge more complicated effects, Study 2 prioritized reliable
19
measurement so data was collected in a laboratory. The Costly Support Hypothesis is especially
demanding in terms of measures and analyses. In addition to the measures used in testing the Rejection Hypothesis, the Costly Support Hypothesis requires us to measure the ideological costs involved in agreeing with a liked party. Hence, the Costly Support Hypothesis entails that response
latency is a function of the three-way interaction between these costs, agreement with the party, and
sympathy for the party.
Data and design
79 undergraduate university students from various disciplines were recruited (39 males, mean age =
21.5, std. dev. = 2.57). For participation, subjects earned a lottery ticket. They were told that they
would be presented with a series of policy statements from three sources: (1) The Socialist People’s
Party, (2) The Danish People’s Party, and (3) non-party sources. Specifically, these statements were
presented as “taken from the general public debate among, for example, experts and pundits” (see
below for discussion). Subjects were presented with 94 propositions on individual computer terminals using E-Prime 2.0 (Psychology Software Tools, http://www.pstnet.com/). Each statement appeared on screen for a fixed time of 12 seconds, and subjects were instructed to answer as soon as
they had formed an opinion. The policies related to various policy areas (e.g., redistribution, criminal justice, immigration, the European Union), and the ideological content of the statements varied
in such a way that one half was consistent with left-wing ideology and one half with right-wing
ideology. The policies were presented in a fixed pseudo-randomized order among the three source
conditions. Hence, subjects were exposed to identical statements, and the source of each statement
did not vary between subjects. Provenance was indicated by the logos of the parties and, in the case
of the non-party sources, an exclamation mark (see sample screens in Figure 2). Note that the sym-
20
bols in terms of overall shape and colours (red and white) are highly similar so response latency
should not be affected by differences in readability.
We obtained the three measures used in Study 1: agreement, party sympathies and response latency.
First, to measure agreement, subjects were asked to either “Agree” or “Disagree” with the policy
statements. Hence, our measure of agreement is a dichotomous variable. Second, we obtained the
subjects’ party affiliation in a pre-experiment paper-and-pencil survey. Again, we used sympathy
ratings formatted and coded as in Study 1. Two subjects failed to provide sympathy ratings of the
focal parties and were removed. Third, response latency in milliseconds was collected by the EPrime software that provides millisecond precision timing both in the presentation of stimuli and in
obtaining response latency.
In addition, the test of the Costly Support Hypothesis requires a measure of the ideological costs of
agreeing with a specific statement. In measuring this, we follow a number of previous studies
(Greitemeyer et al. 2009) and focus on whether the statements are consistent or inconsistent with
the normal ideological profile of the party sponsor. Hence, we should expect positive feelings towards a party to, at least in part, reflect a general endorsement of its ideological goals. An individual
sympathizing with a party should, ceteris paribus, be favourable towards typical, that is, partyconsistent, statements from the party. Conversely, as the party consistency of statements decreases,
a party follower will increasingly sacrifice his or her normal ideological values to meet the party’s
claim for support. Ratings of party consistency of statements were obtained based on a paper-andpencil survey completed by the first 24 subjects after their participation in the experiment. Subjects
were asked the following question. “Below you can find the statements from the [Socialist People’s
Party / Danish People’s Party], which you have just evaluated. Please indicate how typical the
21
statements are for the [Socialist People’s Party / Danish People’s Party]. Answers were recorded for
each statement on a 4-point scale (very typical, typical, less typical, not typical at all). A measure of
the party consistency of each statement attributed to a party was obtained by averaging the answers
of the 24 subjects for each statement and reversing the measure such that higher values correspond
to higher levels of party consistency.
All variables, except response latency measured in milliseconds, vary between 0 and 1. In the analyses, the data from the subjects’ answers to all propositions was pooled. All analyses have been
conducted with cluster robust standard errors with subject as the cluster variable.8
Results: Testing the Costly Support Hypothesis
As a starting point, we analysed the extent to which we obtained party sponsor effects in Study 2;
that is, whether subjects tended to agree with their party. Our analyses clearly suggest that they do
as we find a positive and significant effect of sympathy for the party on agreement (χ2=31.22; p <
0.000). Consistent with previous studies, (Cohen 2003; Greitemeyer at al. 2009; Rahn 1993) there is
a tendency for subjects to toe the party line even on party-inconsistent proposals. To investigate this,
we used the original division of the statements into left- and right-leaning (see section on research
design). Focusing on the third of the subjects most sympathetic to SPP (the left-wing party), we see
that 65 per cent agree on right-leaning statements when they are attributed to SPP, but only 48 per
cent agree when they are attributed to DPP. This difference is significant (t = 5.07; p < 0.000).
Hence, those sympathetic to the left-wing party are more inclined to support right-wing statements
8
In addition, we use a number of control strategies to control for differences across the experimental conditions left by
the pseudo-randomized design. In testing the Costly Support Hypothesis, we focus only on the two (pooled) conditions
with statements from a party. Here, a strong control option is available, and this analysis is controlled for the individual
proposition in the form of a series of dummy variables. In this way, all potential differences between propositions have
been controlled for. In testing the Mere Presence Hypothesis, we compare the conditions with parties to the condition
without parties. The stronger control option is not available because the set of dummy variables is completely collinear
with the condition variable because of the pseudo-randomized design. Therefore, to achieve some level of control, we
include the length of the individual statements (specifically, their number of characters) as a control variable.
22
when these are sponsored by the left-wing relative to the right-wing party. Focusing on the third of
the respondents most sympathetic to DPP, we find that 51 per cent agree with left-leaning statements when they are attributed to SPP while 62 per cent agree when they are attributed to DPP.
Again, this difference is significant (t=-3.02; p=0.003). Hence, although party sponsorship is only
one among many other factors affecting political attitudes, those sympathetic to the right-wing party
are more inclined to support left-wing statements when these are sponsored by the right-wing party
relative to the left-wing party.
This analysis shows that subjects are willing to sacrifice ideological principles in order to support
their party, but according to the Costly Support Hypothesis, such willingness does not come easily.
The Costly Support Hypothesis predicts that citizens experience dissonance and, hence, have more
difficulties expressing support for their party when they need to sacrifice ideological principles in
order to do so.
In testing the Costly Support Hypothesis, we focus only on the two (pooled) conditions with statements from a party (see below for tests involving the condition without party cues). In the party
conditions, we expect response latency to be a function of three factors: 1) Whether the subject expresses support for a statement from a party, 2) whether the subject feels affiliated with the party
sponsor and, finally, 3) whether the statement is consistent or inconsistent with the ideological profile of the party. Hence, in more detail, we expect response latency to be a function of the three-way
interaction between agreement with the statement, sympathy for the party, and the party consistency
of the statement. Specifically, response latency should increase when subjects agree with a partyinconsistent statement from a liked party. In Table 2, response time is regressed on the three-way
interaction term with all constitutive terms included.
23
As shown in the table, there is a significant three-way interaction effect on response latency. To interpret this effect, Figure 3 displays the predicted values (together with 95 per cent confidence intervals) holding the party consistency of the statements constant at the maximum of the variables
(Figure 3A) and minimum levels (Figure 3B). Figure 3A replicates the finding in Study 1. On partyconsistent proposals, increasing sympathy for the party is associated with decreasing response latency for “agree” responses (black line) relative to “disagree” responses (grey line). We find, as in
study 1, that the response latency for party sympathizers is in the range of one or two seconds longer for respondents disagreeing than for respondents agreeing.9 Hence, when parties advocate policies in line with their ideological profile, it is effortful for party affiliates to turn down the claim for
support by disagreeing with the policy. This replication across different samples and different measurement techniques lends important further support to the Rejection Hypothesis.
If the Costly Support Hypothesis is correct, however, we should not expect to find this pattern when
parties advocate party-inconsistent policies and, hence, supporters are required to sacrifice ideological principles in order to follow the party. Turning to Figure 3B, we see that something quite different is indeed happening when subjects respond to party-inconsistent statements. On these statements, increasing sympathy is associated with increasing response latency for “agree” responses
(black line) relative to “disagree” responses (grey line). The substantive effect is, for high sympathy
9
Note that although differences between agreeing and disagreeing respondents are similar in Study 1 and 2, the actual
level of the response latency cannot be compared directly. In Study 1, latency is measured in unknown environments
(some respondents will be interrupted when completing the web survey), while Study 2 is executed in the lab. In Study
1, latencies included delays caused by Internet traffic; in Study 2, they were recorded precisely by software. Finally,
Study 2 had a time limit; Study 1 did not. This resulted in considerably longer response latencies in Study 1 (median =
14,930 ms) compared to Study 2 (median = 5991 ms).
24
respondents, again in the range of a second or two longer. Hence, when meeting the claim for support is associated with high ideological costs, agreeing becomes increasingly effortful.10
These results support the Costly Support Hypothesis.11 If party cues were processed using heuristic
processing, the availability of party cues would decrease processing effort; yet, the current evidence
demonstrates just the opposite, i.e., that following a liked party can be quite effortful. In this respect, it is also important to recall that our subjects do in fact toe the party line on party-inconsistent
proposals despite the associated effort. In other words, our subjects do not agree with parties to minimize effort but are rather willing to spend reasoning effort to toe the party line on policies they
would normally disagree with (due to ideological concerns). This provides support for the motivated reasoning perspective.12
As noted, a final implication of motivated reasoning is that the mere presence of party cues requires
citizens to spend reasoning effort to weigh their group motivation against other more regular issue-
10
Previous studies have shown that the presence of incongruent information increases response latency (Redlawsk,
2002; Huckfeldt et al., 2005); we find a similar effect in our data. In a non-interactive model, a main effect of party
consistency on response latency is found, such that responses are prolonged when the statement is party-inconsistent
(F1, 77 = 7.21, P = 0.009). As discussed in the section on our predictions, this simple effect cannot explain the complicated three-way interaction effect entailed by the motivated reasoning perspective.
11
Again, additional analyses demonstrate that this interactive effect of party sympathy is the same across the two parties
used in the study (i.e., regardless whether the policy was sponsored by SPP or by DPP) and is specifically linked to
sympathy for the sponsor rather than sympathy for any party. Following the logic specified in footnote 33, we expanded
the model presented in Table 2. Specifically, we added two four-way interaction terms with all lower-order terms between, first, agreement, party sympathy, party consistency of the policy, and party sponsor (to test whether the effect
was the same across conditions) and, second, agreement, sympathy for the non-sponsor, party consistency of the policy,
and party sponsor (to test whether the effects were specifically linked to sympathy for the sponsor). Consistent with our
expectations, the three-way interaction term between agreement, party sympathy, and party consistency of the policy
was robust to the inclusion of these extra terms (F=13.50; p = .0004). In addition, neither the three-way interaction term
with sympathy for non-sponsor nor the two four-way interaction terms were significant at the .05-level.
12
Given the focus of the heuristic perspective on the moderating effects of political awareness, one could perhaps wonder whether the observed sensitivity to the ideological content of the proposals is due to the use of a politically aware
student sample. This is, however, not the case. Hence, we obtained the exact same measure of political awareness in
Study 2 as in Study 1, and a comparison reveals that the student sample in Study 2 is actually less aware than the average citizen. On a scale from 0 to 1, the mean awareness in our representative sample (Study 1) is .57, while the mean
awareness in the student sample (Study 2) is .42. In addition, we have tested whether the predicted effects are moderated by the students’ political awareness, but this is not the case. Hence, the four-way interaction term with political
awareness is insignificant (p=.62).
25
relevant considerations. In direct contrast, the heuristic perspective leads to the expectation that the
presence of party cues minimizes effort because the cues alleviate the need for reasoning when
forming opinions. It turns out that the average response time in the condition without party cues is
in fact shorter than the average response in the conditions with party cues.13 We interpret this as
further evidence for the motivated reasoning perspective.
Discussion
Our group identities are cherished and therefore become central vehicles for triggering motivated
reasoning (Matz and Wood 2005). For example, claims for support from one’s own group can trigger dissonance and effortful processing if one fails to meet the claim, or if meeting the claim entails
high costs. In this article, we have applied this framework to situations in which political parties
signal their positions on issues. In two studies, we have provided support for the idea that party cues
trigger motivated reasoning. Party cues can substantially influence citizens’ opinions. They do so –
we hypothesize – because they are psychologically represented as group-based claims for support.
In line with the proposed framework, we have demonstrated, first, that turning down a claim for
support from a liked party is effortful (the Rejection Hypothesis). Second, meeting a claim for support from a liked party is effortful when this entails sacrificing ideological principles (the Costly
Support Hypothesis). Additional tests corroborated the motivated reasoning interpretation of these
effects and, in particular, showed that the mere presence of party cues triggers increased effort in the
moment an opinion is formed.
13
The statements in the no-party condition were labelled by a visual cue of size, colour, and complexity similar to the
party cues (see Figure 2). The comparison shows that the availability of party cues significantly prolongs the response
time with 213 ms (F1, 77 = 20.39, P < 0.0001). Effort is, in other words, increased rather than decreased in the face of
party cues.
26
The empirical findings rest on a methodologically innovative design. First, we followed recent calls
for using implicit measures when investigating psychological processes. Using response latency as
a measure of effort allowed us to sidestep problems associated with relying on subjects’ post-hoc
rationalizations and gauge effort in the very moment the opinion formation unfolded. In this way,
we ensured that our measures were not tainted by social desirability factors (e.g., reluctance to report that agreeing with ones party was effortful). Second, we solved the inherent sampling problems
associated with achieving reliable implicit measurement by conducting two studies. Study 1 was
conducted over the Internet with a nationally representative sample, thereby maximizing external
validity; Study 2 was conducted in the laboratory using specialized software on a student sample,
thereby maximizing measurement reliability. In both studies, the standard prediction in psychology
on effort and group dynamics, the Rejection Hypothesis, was tested and supported. In addition, the
fine-grained measurement in Study 2 allowed us to test the Costly Support and, hence, demonstrate
the even more complicated effects on effort of the ideological costs of meeting a claim for support.
The marked consistency of the test of the Rejection Hypothesis across studies boosts our confidence
in the basic theoretical framework and its generalizability to the general public and, hence, in the
expectation that also the more complicated dynamics uncovered in Study 2 are general in nature.
This study provides strong evidence that the effect of party sponsorship on opinion formation cannot be understood fully without considering motivational processes. At the same time, it is important to note that this finding does not imply that no other factors than party cues affect opinions
(Bullock 2011). Neither does it preclude that other processes also play important roles in the way
party cues structure citizens’ opinions. First of all, it is most likely that citizens also use party cues
as information on how to comprehend the content of policy issues as suggested by several political
researchers (e.g., Koch 2001; Schaffner and Streb 2002; Squire and Smith 1988). The importance of
27
this dynamic most likely varies from case to case. In some cases, party cues can provide relevant
information. This is, for example, the case when party endorsements are given to issues closely related to old political cleavages such as the left-right dimension. Since a political party have a history
and a reputation of promoting certain values, citizens can, with limited investments, get a feel for
the principles underlying a specific policy by knowing which party promotes it and which party
opposes it (see, e.g., Lau and Redlawsk 2006; Petersen et al. 2010). Importantly, such learning dynamics might even influence the effort with which citizens process novel policies. As established by
previous research, when parties promote policies that are at odds with their normal stance, citizens
use more effort to decipher the policies (Redlawsk 2002; Huckfeldt et al. 2005).14 For the purpose
of the present article, two observations are important in this regard: a) even when party cues cannot
provide much information, they still affect opinions (Hobolt 2007; Malhotra and Kuo 2009; Malhotra and Margalit 2010); b) the effect of these learning dynamics on reasoning effort cannot account for the full set of results put forth in the present article. As discussed previously, we have not
just demonstrated that the presence of party-inconsistent information triggers effort or that the presence of party-inconsistent information from a liked party triggers effort. Rather, we have shown that
agreeing with highly party-inconsistent proposals from liked parties is more effortful than disagreeing. That is, in line with a motivated reasoning perspective, individuals increase their reasoning effort when they abandon ideological beliefs to toe their party’s line.
Second, a number of individual differences could moderate the effects we have observed. In both
studies, we collected data on a prominent individual differences measure in the literature: political
knowledge or awareness (e.g., Kam 2005; Zaller 1992). One could have suspected that people low
in knowledge would not, for example, notice that some policies were incongruent with the party or
14
In other cases, party cues provide very limited information. This is the case for issues not related to the more general
positions of parties. For instance, Hobolt (2007) argues that party cues on issues related to European integration will
provide limited information in most European countries.
28
that people high in knowledge were more resistant to toe the party line on incongruent policies. In
neither study, however, do we find effects of political knowledge. This lack of effect is, however,
not entirely unpredictable, as previous studies have found quite different effects of knowledge.
Some studies report greater party cue effects among the least knowledgeable (e.g., Kam 2005),
whereas other studies find the greatest effects among the most knowledgeable (e.g., Slothuus and
De Vreese 2010). One reason for these mixed findings – and the lack of effect that we observe –
could be that political knowledge both measures cognitive and emotional engagement in politics.
For example, while the knowledgeable know more about politics and are, hence, better able to see
the party inconsistency of the policies, they are also more emotionally invested in the parties, and
these cross-cutting pressures could cancel each other out. Recently, Bullock (2011) has found more
consistent effects using a more direct measure of cognitive ability, need for cognition, and future
research should dig deeper into how need for cognition shapes the different processes through
which party cues can influence attitudes.
Finally, it is important to note what we have and what we have not shown. We have provided evidence that motivated reasoning plays a significant role in the processing of party cues. On the basis
of a view dating back to The American Voter (Campbell et al. 1960), we have argued that the motivation spurring these directional reasoning efforts emerges from group psychological processes; that
is, party attachments are psychologically represented as group attachments, and as a consequence,
people are motivated to appear loyal to their party. While this premise is consistent with previous
research (as we describe in the theory section), we have not provided new independent evidence of
the psychological underpinnings of the motivation here. Given this, we would like to point to new
emerging evidence in this regard. A line of social psychology research has developed an experimental paradigm – called the “who said what?” paradigm – that can be specifically utilized to test
29
whether cues are processed by psychological mechanisms tailored to process group affiliations
(Kurzban et al. 2001; for a use of this paradigm in political science, see Petersen 2012). By focusing
on attention, these protocols measure the extent to which the availability of a given cue crowds out
attention to alternative cues. To the extent that a specific cue competes exclusively for attention
with cues that previous research has established as group related, this provides solid evidence that
the cue in question is processed by group psychological mechanisms (see Kurzban et al. 2001). By
implication, investigating whether information about individuals’ party affiliation makes subjects
pay less attention to other group cues (e.g., the individuals’ race) without changing their attention to
non-group cues (e.g., the individuals’ sex or age) would be a direct demonstration that party attachments are filtered through distinct group psychological mechanisms. New evidence suggest that this
is indeed the case (Pietraszewski et al., 2012) and provides more direct evidence for the groupbased underpinnings of the motivations that spur motivated reasoning in the context of party politics.
Which psychological model underlies party sponsor effects has important implications. In contrast
to the heuristic perspective, the motivated reasoning perspective implies that opinion formation in
the face of party cues is not accuracy-oriented (Taber and Lodge 2006). Rather, citizens are, in effect, motivated to be biased. The group perspective entails, first, that political elites cannot alleviate
partisan bias by providing alternate cues or by facilitating interest in a given topic. Paradoxically, in
their persuasive efforts to win public support for their policies, political parties are, by implication,
at the same time quite powerful and quite constrained. The corroboration of the group perspective
suggests that political parties can shape the opinions of their supporters merely by signalling their
positions, but cannot reach the supporters of opposite parties without having even intellectually
forceful messages distorted. Second, it opens the question of whether it is valid to talk about citizens being ‘led astray’ by their party, or, at least, whether citizens themselves are willing to describe
30
their own behaviour in these terms. In a traditional democratic perspective, citizens ought to base
their opinions on long-standing values. But, as argued by Green et al. (2002), if political engagement grows out of partisan attachments, citizens might to a much lesser extent share the normative
ideal of value-based opinion formation. To many, it might be more important – psychologically as
well as normatively – to signal loyalty to the party.
Acknowledgements
We thank Lene Aarøe, Jamie Druckman and Rune Slothuus for helpful comments and advice in
preparing this article.
31
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Table 1. Response latency (rank) as a function of agreement with a
party’s policy and sympathy for the party
Intercept
Agreement with Party
Sympathy for Party
Agree  Sympathy
R2 (adj.)
Model
.49***
(.02)
.08
(.04)
.13*
(.06)
-.26**
(.08)
.01
Notes. Notes. N = 1417. Coefficients are OLS-regression estimates
with standard errors in parentheses. All variables vary between 0 and
1.
*p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001
36
Table 2. Response latency in milliseconds as a function of agreement
with a party’s policy, sympathy for the party and the party consistency
of the policy
Intercept
Agreement with party
Sympathy for party
Party consistency of policy
Agree  Sympathy
Agree  Party consistency
Sympathy  Party consistency
Agree  Sympathy  Party consistency
R2 (adj.)
Model
8044.55***
(403.07)
-651.22
(371.79)
-992.51
(613.57)
-1360.68*
(536.77)
2937.72***
(739.85)
885.09
(625.18)
2767.12**
(917.74)
-5809.38***
(1286.43)
0.17
Notes. N = 4644. Only responses on statements attributed to a party
are included in the analysis. Coefficients are OLS-regression estimates
with cluster robust standard errors in parentheses. Data is clustered on
subject. The model includes dummy variables for each individual
proposition. All variables vary between 0 and 1, except response latency measured in milliseconds.
*p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001
37
Figure 1. Predicted response latency as a function of agreement with a
party’s policy and sympathy for the party
Notes. Predicted values computed from Table 1. Effects displayed for
Agreement = 0 (Disagree) and Agreement = 1 (Agree) and with 95 per
cent confidence intervals. Ranked response latency varies between 0
and 1.
38
Figure 2. The set-up of the experimental interface
Note. For readability, the figures depart slightly from the actual screens in terms of font
size etc. Figure 2A displays a translated sample proposition (“Public transport should be
free of charge”) from condition with the left-wing party, the Socialist People’s Party.
Figure 2B displays a translated sample proposition (“We should cut expenses to the National Guard”) for the right-wing party, Danish People’s Party. Figure 2C displays a
translated sample proposition from non-party sources (“The EU should adopt common
immigration rules”).
39
Figure 3. Predicted response latency as a function of agreement with a party’s policy, sympathy for
the party and the party consistency of the policy
A
B
Notes. Predicted values computed from Table 2. Effects displayed for Party Consistency = 1 (Panel
A) and Party Consistency = 0 (Panel B) and with 95 per cent confidence intervals.
40
Online Appendix
Table A1. Representativeness of Sample for Study 1. Percentages of Sample and Population
reported.
Study 1
Sample
Population
Sexa
Female
49.22
49.89
Male
50.78
50.10
a
Age
18-29
18.82
19.40
30-39
20.25
17.70
40-49
19.88
20.84
50-59
21.68
18.52
60-74
19.38
21.79
a
Geographical Region
Copenhagen Area
25.67
22.01
Rest of Sealand and islands
28.66
32.27
Jutland
45.67
45.72
a
Highest Education
Elementary School
19.00
31.08
High School
6.11
6.08
High School (technical)
6.11
2.28
Vocational School
25.11
33.04
Short Tertiary Education
10.59
4.15
Medium Tertiary Education
21.18
12.48
Long Tertiary Education
11.28
6.01
PhD Degree
0.62
0.36
b
Voting
Social Democrats
24.47
25.50
Social Liberals
5.29
5.10
Conservatives
12.30
10.40
Socialist People’s Party
16.07
13.00
Christian Democrats
0.86
0.90
Danish People’s Party
12.17
13.90
Liberals
22.55
26.20
New Alliance
3.77
2.80
Red/Green Alliance
2.51
2.20
a
Information about population proportions from Statistics Denmark (http://www.dst.dk/en). Proportions obtained for January 2008. The sample was collected in December 2007.
b
Population proportions on voting patterns is the actual election results from the general national
election for the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) held on November 13 2007. Election result was
obtained from the Danish Ministry of the Interior Affairs (http://www.im.dk/English.aspx).
41
Table A2. Subjects’ perceived alignment with supporters of a party as a function of agreement
with the party’s policy, sympathy for the party and response latency for agreement.
Model
Intercept
-.03
(.03)
Agreement with party
.08
(.05)
Sympathy for party
.59***
(.07)
Response latency
.03
(.05)
Agree  Sympathy
.10
(.10)
Agree  Response latency
-.07
(.09)
Sympathy  Response latency
-.18
(.13)
Agree  Sympathy  Response latency
.37*
(.18)
R2 (adj.)
0.65
Notes. N = 1359. Coefficients are OLS-regression estimates with standard errors in parentheses. All
variables vary between 0 and 1.
*p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001
42