(Mis-)perceptions of politically motivated reasoning

Last registered on March 18, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

(Mis-)perceptions of politically motivated reasoning

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0015498

Initial registration date

March 10, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

March 18, 2025, 8:32 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Guy Yanay

Affiliation

Hebrew University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Robin Musolff

PI Affiliation

Bonn University

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2025-03-10

End date

2025-06-30

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

Polarization, Motivated Reasoning, Partisan Gap, Belief Updating

JEL code(s)

D9 D8

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Mass political polarization has been on the rise in The US since the 1990s. Beyond the general distrust people have for their political opponents, it seems a common conception that there is little agreement on basic facts.
This perception of disagreement is often attributed to biased news sources, but has also been attributed to politically motivated information processing. We look at how people revise their beliefs about politically charged factual questions when presented with feedback on their initial guesses.
We ask the following:
* Do people respond differently to information when it aligns/misaligns with their political opinions?
* If this asymmetry exists, does it differ by individual or issue characteristics?
* Are People's perceptions of these behaviors correct?

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Musolff, Robin and Guy Yanay. 2025. "(Mis-)perceptions of politically motivated reasoning." AEA RCT Registry. March 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15498-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2025-03-10

Intervention End Date

2025-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

actual and perceived belief movement in response to information

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We conduct an online survey of 800 US Republicans and Democrats. Participants are presented with factual statistical questions and are asked to give their best estimates.
Following their initial guess, participants are told (for each question) whether the real statistic is lower or higher than their initial estimation.
They are then asked to give a revised estimate. A subset of participants estimate others' responses.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Participants in the first study are randomly assigned political and non-political (control) questions for estimation. For half of the political questions, a high answer is aligned with a Republican political stance, and for the other half, it is aligned with a Democrat political stance. The key randomization is thus whether a question is political or neutral, and for political questions whether a higher answer is aligned with a Republican or Democrat view.
For the second and third studies, participants are asked to estimate the guesses of earlier participants which are Republican/Democrat and received pro-party/counter-party news. Whether the earlier participants are identified as Republicans or Democrats and whether they received pro-party or counter-party news is randomized.

Randomization Unit

Random questions per participant

Was the treatment clustered?