You Cannot be Serious: The Impact of Accuracy Incentives on Partisan Bias in Reports of Economic Perceptions
You Cannot be Serious: The Impact of Accuracy Incentives on Partisan Bias in Reports of Economic Perceptions
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DOI：
10.1561/100.00014127
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发表时间：
2015-01-01
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
Khanna, Kabir
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Prior, Markus;Sood, Gaurav;Khanna, Kabir
在对经济状况进行调查时，总统所在政党的支持者往往比反对者报告更积极的情况。学者们将这一发现解释为，党派人士甚至无法就事实达成一致。我们测试了另一种解释：党派人士给出了党派一致的答案，即使他们有，或者可以推断出，他们认同的政党的信息不那么讨人喜欢。为了验证这一假设，我们对全国代表性样本进行了两次调查，通过金钱激励和屏幕上的呼吁，实验性地操纵受访者的动机。这两种处理方法都大大减少了经济状况报告中的党派差异。许多党派人士将有关经济状况的事实问题解释为意见问题，除非他们有相反的动机。因此，典型的调查条件揭示了党派人士对经济的了解和他们希望的真实情况。
When surveyed about economic conditions, supporters of the president's party often report more positive conditions than its opponents. Scholars have interpreted this finding to mean that partisans cannot even agree on matters of fact. We test an alternative interpretation: Partisans give partisan congenial answers even when they have, or could have inferred, information less flattering to the party they identify with. To test this hypothesis, we administered two surveys to nationally representative samples, experimentally manipulating respondents' motivation to be accurate via monetary incentives and on-screen appeals. Both treatments reduced partisan differences in reports of economic conditions significantly. Many partisans interpret factual questions about economic conditions as opinion questions, unless motivated to see them otherwise. Typical survey conditions thus reveal a mix of what partisans know about the economy, and what they would like to be true.