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The Enduring Importance of False Political Beliefs
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The Enduring Importance of False Political Beliefs
John G. Bullock
∗
March 14, 2006 (4:30pm)
Abstract
Much work on political persuasion maintains that people are influenced by
information that they believe and not by information that they don’t. By this view, falsebeliefs have no power if they are known to be false. This helps to explain frequent effortsto change voters’ attitudes by exposing them to relevant facts. But findings from socialpsychology suggest that this view requires modification: sometimes, false beliefs influencepeople’s attitudes even after they are understood to be false. In a trio of experiments, Idemonstrate that the effect is present in people’s thinking about politics and amplified byparty identification.
∗
Department of Political Science, Stanford University. Please send comments to
john.## email not listed ##
.
Brent Bannon, James Druckman, Simon Jackman, Jon Krosnick, Bethany Lacina, Mark Lepper,
Neil Malhotra, Nora Ng, Lee Ross, Paul Sniderman, and members of the Political Psychology ResearchGroup at Stanford University offered many helpful comments. David Brady, Will Bullock, EricKnowles, and Paul Piff assisted with the experiments on many occasions. My thanks go to all of them.
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The Enduring Importance of False Political Beliefs
John G. Bullock
∗
March 14, 2006 (4:30pm)
Abstract
Much work on political persuasion maintains that people are influenced by
information that they believe and not by information that they don’t. By this view, false
beliefs have no power if they are known to be false. This helps to explain frequent efforts
to change voters’ attitudes by exposing them to relevant facts. But findings from social
psychology suggest that this view requires modification: sometimes, false beliefs influence
people’s attitudes even after they are understood to be false. In a trio of experiments, I
demonstrate that the effect is present in people’s thinking about politics and amplified by
party identification.
∗
Department of Political Science, Stanford University. Please send comments to
Brent Bannon, James Druckman, Simon Jackman, Jon Krosnick, Bethany Lacina, Mark Lepper,
Neil Malhotra, Nora Ng, Lee Ross, Paul Sniderman, and members of the Political Psychology Research
Group at Stanford University offered many helpful comments. David Brady, Will Bullock, Eric
Knowles, and Paul Piff assisted with the experiments on many occasions. My thanks go to all of them.
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