Partisan elites shape citizens' economic beliefs

Bisgaard, Martin; Slothuus, Rune

doi:10.1017/s0140525x18000304

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…While our study is largely explorative, we can provide a tentative theoretical explanation of the observed development: Learning among voters from elites may have been affected by "partisan perceptional screen" [27], which introduces heterogeneity in learning across partisanship. Here, partisanship functions as a filter for information, causing adherents of different parties to perceive (economic) information differently from the same set of facts [28]. It can also affect how voters seek out information that is consistent with their prior ideological beliefs and dismiss or avoid information that is inconsistent with existing beliefs.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It can also affect how voters seek out information that is consistent with their prior ideological beliefs and dismiss or avoid information that is inconsistent with existing beliefs. Accordingly, voter polarization is often the product of elite polarization as voters learn about their favored party's position on a policy issue [28]. Usually, the development of voter polarization follows the logic by which partisan predispositions are activated in the minds of citizens in response to elites debating an issue, which subsequently constrains the policy preferences of citizens [29].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

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Citizens’ economic recovery models for a pandemic

Olsen

Woller

2023

PLoS ONE

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The COVID-19 pandemic brought sudden economic devastation and forced countries to respond with policies to counter the looming economic crisis. What policy response do citizens prefer to combat an economic decline due to a pandemic? We study the preferences of citizens regarding economic policy and changes in these preferences as the pandemic unfolded in Denmark. Denmark passed early and comprehensive legislation with broad support from all political parties to counter the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. We employ a large nationally representative two-wave panel of Danish citizens (N = 12,131) drawn from the administrative registers, from which data was collected at the onset of the economic shock and immediately prior to economic recovery. In both waves the same subjects describe their preferred economic solution to COVID-19 in open-text format. We generate a simple dictionary method to uncover a set of distinct laymen economic policy responses. First, we find that citizens formulated a diverse set of policy interventions. Second, citizens become markedly stronger proponents of economic intervention as the crisis unfolded. Finally, we show how differences in economic preferences across partisanship vanished during the crisis.

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Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Citizens’ economic recovery models for a pandemic

Olsen

Woller

2023

PLoS ONE

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“…Credibility-enhancing displays could consist of prominent people (e.g., politicians) not just saying what they believe, but acting like they believe it. Since there is evidence that political parties can shape their partisan supporters' view on political subjects in important ways (Bisgaard & Slothuus 2018), for politicians, this would mean actually doing political work in accordance with the best knowledge of economists and not actively endorsing known folk-economic beliefs with either words or actions.…”

Section: Practical Implications: Correcting Inaccurate Folkeconomic Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sense or non-sense? a critical discussion of a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to “folk-economic beliefs”

Bendixen

2019

EMB

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Laypeople hold beliefs about economics and policy issues—so-called folk-economic beliefs (FEBs)—that are often wrong or misleading according to professional economists. Here, I critically discuss a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to understanding folk-economic beliefs. According to this approach (Boyer & Petersen 2018a), some economic beliefs are more prevalent than others, because such beliefs (i.e., folk-economic beliefs) resonate with evolved features of the human mind. I refer to this as the “FEB hypothesis”. A central challenge to the FEB hypothesis, with its heavy reliance on universal cognitive features, is to explain individual and cultural differences in economic beliefs and behavior. This challenge is the starting point for the discussion. Overall, the conclusion of this paper is that the FEB hypothesis relies on unnecessarily strong and controversial theoretical assumptions (e.g., “massive modularity” and the “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness”), and that it overlooks important findings from adjacent fields, but that the FEB hypothesis, following some modifications inspired by Dual Inheritance Theory, can be integrated with robust findings from the rest of the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, as well as standard political psychology. Based on this discussion, the paper ends with brief reflections on how to correct inaccurate folk-economic beliefs.

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“…Elite influence and the perceived seriousness of the coronavirus death toll While elite influence on partisans' opinions is well known (Zaller 1992), influence on their perceptions of reality is only beginning to be understood (Bisgaard and Slothuus 2018b). In the realm of democratic accountability, these perceptions are integral.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Bad is it? Elite Influence and the Perceived Seriousness of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Moniz

2020

J Exp Polit Sci

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In spite of its immense global impact, Republicans and Democrats disagree on how serious a problem the coronavirus pandemic is. One likely reason is the political elites to whom partisans listen. As a means of shoring up support, President Trump largely downplayed but at times hyped the severity of the virus. Do these messages influence the perceived seriousness of the virus’s death toll, how the president is evaluated as well as support for and compliance with social distancing guidelines? Results suggest that Republican identifiers had by early June crystallized their views on the virus’s seriousness, the president’s performance, and social distancing policies and behaviors. Unexpectedly, information critical of President Trump’s policy decisions produced a backlash causing people to show less concern about the virus’s death toll and rate the president’s performance even more highly.

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Partisan elites shape citizens' economic beliefs

Cited by 4 publications

References 34 publications

Citizens’ economic recovery models for a pandemic

Citizens’ economic recovery models for a pandemic

Sense or non-sense? a critical discussion of a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to “folk-economic beliefs”

How Bad is it? Elite Influence and the Perceived Seriousness of the Coronavirus Pandemic

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