A tale of two peoples: motivated reasoning in the aftermath of the Brexit Vote

Abstract

Partisanship is a powerful driver of economic perceptions. Yet we know less about whether other political divisions may lead to similar evaluative biases. In this paper, we explore how the salient divide between “Remainers” and “Leavers” in the UK in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum has given rise to biased economic perceptions. In line with the cognitive dissonance framework, we argue that salient non-partisan divisions can change economic perceptions by triggering processes of self- and in-group justification. Using both nationally-representative observational and experimental survey data, we demonstrate that the perceptions of the economy are shaped by the Brexit divide and that these biases are exacerbated when respondents are reminded of Brexit. These findings indicate that perceptual biases are not always rooted in partisanship, but can be triggered by other political divisions.

Snap elections increase political trust: a quasi-experiment from the UK

“…In the case of likely Remain voters, the average treatment effect is both comparatively small and also statistically indistinguishable from zero (β = .04 |p = 0.426). As Sorace and Hobolt (2020) demonstrate in the case of economic evaluations, we therefore observe that Brexit-based orientations exhibit a partisanshiplike motivated reasoning effect when it comes to forming evaluations of trust in the government in the face of incumbent opportunism.…”

“…The effect of snap elections on political trust will be moderated by ideological congruence with the incumbent In the specific case of the UK under consideration in this study, research highlights the emergence of salient Brexit-based political identities in addition to party identities following the 2016 Brexit referendum (Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley, 2020). Importantly, these Brexit-based identities -whether one identifies as a pro-EU "Remainer" or an anti-EU "Leaver" -have also been found to exhibit partisan-like moderating effects on the responsiveness to political and economic information (Sorace and Hobolt, 2020).…”

Ideology: The Psychological and Social Foundations of Belief Systems

“…Consider the "Leave" versus "Remain" divide over Brexit that began to consume British politics in 2015. Hobolt and her colleagues note the traditional view of affective polarization as pertaining to animosity directed at members of the opposing party, but showed that identification with a stance on Brexit, which cut across party lines, generated affective polarization and outgroup prejudice that were at least as strong as those associated with partisanship (Hobolt, Leeper, & Tilley, 2020;Sorace & Hobolt, 2020; see also Evans and Schaffner, 2019). A similar phenomenon occurred with the Tea Party movement in American politics in 2010.…”

Productivity-based retrospective voting: Legislative productivity and voting in the 2019 European Parliament elections

“…Recent research, however, demonstrates that voters make systematic errors in evaluating economic performance and attributing responsibility for economic conditions, both because of cognitive constraints – such as the availability heuristic (Bartels, 2008; Kramer, 1971) – and because of group-serving bias (Bartels, 2002; Bisgaard, 2015; Enns et al, 2012; Evans and Pickup, 2010; Evans and Andersen, 2006; Sorace and Hobolt, 2020; Tilley and Hobolt, 2011). This calls into question the assumption that economic performance is easily observable and ‘digested’ by voters.…”

“…Different past performance indicators could be adopted to monitor political agents. Economic performance has been the indicator of choice in most studies of retrospective voting, but recent research has demonstrated that the processing of economic information is too complex for voters, and prone to cognitive biases (Bartels, 2002; Enns et al, 2012; Sorace and Hobolt, 2020). Moreover, economic performance is not an appropriate indicator for all types of elected representatives (Healy and Malhotra, 2013).…”