Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Motivated Information Processing: A Policy Case

为什么人们经常坚持自己的政治态度，即使面对相互矛盾的证据？这个项目关注的是我们的目标和欲望如何影响我们对政治相关信息的评价、记忆和体验。当今美国的几个政策问题极具争议性。有时，分歧的焦点不是如何最好地解决这个问题，而是这个问题是否存在。这个项目引用了几篇文献来假设，保护美国经济体系的动机可能会影响个人处理有关政策问题的信息的方式。制度正当性理论认为，个人有动机捍卫、支持和证明他们所生活的社会经济和政治安排的合理性。这种动机在一些人身上比其他人更强，也可能受到情景因素的影响。系统辩护在短期内往往是有益的，因为它缓解了现状威胁引发的焦虑、不确定性和恐惧。然而，从长远来看，系统理由可能会干扰纠正系统级问题的意图或积极尝试。最近的经验证据表明，在某种程度上，政策举措被视为对我们的经济竞争力构成威胁，个人可能会为了维持社会现状而拒绝承认问题。这项研究还表明，那些认为自己是党派的人之间在政策态度上的意识形态差异至少部分是由于个人在制度合理性动机上的差异。但是，在相反的证据面前，政策信念如何保持呢？最近，政治学家开始探索这样一种可能性，即我们解读政治信息的方式在很大程度上是由动机力量驱动的。在本文中，我探讨了制度正当性动机对政策证据加工产生偏差的假设。利用从全美不同样本收集的调查、定性数据和实验方法，我考察了系统合理性激励运作的知觉和认知机制。具体地说，我探讨了公众如何处理信息，无论是在他们的日常生活中，还是在直接接触新信息时。利用从这些研究中收集的知识，然后我将探索潜在的干预措施，以帮助个人克服系统合理性动机的影响，并将他们重新引导到更准确的政策信息处理上。本研究综合了政治学和社会心理学的理论和方法。旨在为政治信息加工、动机认知、制度合理性、政策态度等方面的文献研究做出基础性和应用性的贡献。首先，它渴望对政治认同的心理基础提供更微妙的考虑，以便更好地理解抵制变革的意识形态和党派差异。其次，本研究希望证明，认知可能会受到情境性的系统服务需求的影响，而不仅仅是维持一个人？S自己的先前信念或一个？S社会群体的信念的愿望。第三，它为解决分歧的政策教育和计划的无效提供了一种政治心理解释。这项研究还旨在提出干预措施，以激励旨在最大限度地减少有偏见的信息处理的公共政策。它的目的不是让个人相信各种政策是一个紧迫的问题，而是为他们提供工具，让他们自己就政策信息得出客观的结论。它对教育也有重要的影响。支持研究假设的结果将鼓励更多地关注批判性思维和逻辑，以及更多地接触和掌握解释政策信息的技能。通过在同行评议的期刊和教育工作者中传播这一项目的结果，可能会找到解决复杂政治问题的跨学科解决方案。

Why do people so often hold tight to their political attitudes, even in the face of contradictory evidence? This project focuses on the ways in which our goals and desires can shape how we evaluate, remember, and experience politically relevant information. Several policy issues in the United States today are highly contentious. Disagreement at times centers not on how best to tackle the problem, but on whether the problem exists. This project draws from several literatures to hypothesize that the motivation to protect the economic system in the United States may impact the way that individuals process information about policy issues. System Justification Theory posits that individuals are motivated to defend, bolster, and justify the socioeconomic and political arrangements in which they live. This motivation is stronger in some people than others and can also be affected by situational factors. System justification is often beneficial in the short term, in that it alleviates the anxiety, uncertainty, and fear elicited by threats to the status quo. However, in the long term system justification can interfere with intentions or active attempts to correct system-level problems. Recent empirical evidence indicates that, to the extent that policy initiatives are seen as threatening to our economic competitiveness, individuals may be motivated to deny problems in order to maintain the societal status quo. This research has also demonstrated that ideological differences in policy attitudes between those who identify as partisans are at least partially due to individual differences in system justification motivation. But how are policy beliefs maintained in the face of contrary evidence? Recently, political scientists have begun to explore the possibility that the way we interpret political information is driven largely by motivational forces. In this dissertation, I explore the hypothesis that system justification motivation biases processing of policy evidence. Using surveys, qualitative data, and experimental methods collected from diverse samples across the United States, I examine the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms by which system justification motivation operates. Specifically, I explore how the public processes information, both in their day-to-day lives and when exposed directly to new information. Using knowledge gleaned from these studies, I will then explore potential interventions to help individuals overcome the effects of system justification motivation and redirect them toward more accurate processing of policy information. This research integrates theory and methods from political science and social psychology. In doing so, it aims to make basic and applied contributions to the political information processing, motivated cognition, system justification, and policy attitudes literatures. First, it aspires to offer a more nuanced consideration of the psychological underpinnings of political identification in order to better understand ideological and partisan variability in resistance to change. Second, this research hopes to demonstrate that cognition may be affected by situational, system-serving needs rather than merely the desire to maintain one?s own prior beliefs or the beliefs of one?s social groups. Third, it offers a political psychological account for the ineffectiveness of policy education and programs to address disagreement. This research also aims to suggest interventions that may inspire public policy directed at minimizing biased information processing. It aims not to persuade individuals that various policies are an urgent concern, but rather to provide them the tools to reach objective conclusions about policy information themselves. It also has important implications for education. Findings in support of the research hypotheses would encourage an increased focus on critical thinking and logic, and increased exposure to and skills in interpreting policy information. By disseminating findings from this project both in peer-reviewed journals and to educators, interdisciplinary solutions to complex political problems might be found.