This document provides an overview of a college course on persuasion, propaganda, and public opinion. It includes the syllabus and schedule for the second half of the course. It discusses potential topics for a second written assignment and examples of political propaganda. It also defines propaganda and discusses theories of political persuasion, including source, message, and audience characteristics based on Hovland's message-learning approach. Questions are raised about the role of credible sources and conflicts of interest in political persuasion.

1. PERSUASION, PROPAGANDA & PUBLIC
OPINION
PS 473, Public Opinion
Mark Peffley

2. Who is this person?
 Changes to the syllabus
 The second half of the course reverts to the
original schedule (next slide)
 Decide about the 2nd written assignment
 Names on Class Photo
 Buy the books!
 Adam Berinsky. InTime ofWar: Understanding
American PublicOpinion fromWorldWar II to
Iraq.Chicago, 2009.
 Matthew Levendusky. How Partisan Media
Polarize America.Chicago, 2013.

3. Syllabus, second half of the
course, posted on Bb
IV. External Sources of Public Opinion: The Mass Media, Events and Opinion Leadership
March 24, 26: Persuasion & Propaganda
Berinsky, In Time of War, chapters 1-4.
March 31, April 2, 7: Public Opinion and the News Media
Berinsky, In Time of War, chapter 5.
Levendusky. How Partisan Media Polarize America
Written Assignment II due
April 9-16: Public Opinion and War
Berinsky, In Time of War, chapters 6-9.
V. Public Opinion and Public Policy
April 21, 23, 28
Larry Bartels. 2004. “Unenlightened Self-Interest: The Strange Appeal of the Estate Tax Repeal.”. (Bb)
Larry Bartels. 2005. “Homer Gets a Tax Cut.” (Bb)
Andrea Louise Campbell, “Public Opinion and Public Policy.” (Bb)
Matthew Baum, “Media, Public Opinion, and Presidential Leadership.” (Bb)
John Sides & Jake Haselswerdt. “Campaigns and Elections.” (Bb)
Final Review Questions: (posted at least one week before the final)
April 30: Last Day of Class!
May 7: FINAL EXAMINATION: THURSDAY, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM

4. 2nd written assignment
 Survey analysis II?
 Review an article?
 Memo on response to terrorist attack (or
campaign ad?) based on Berinsky?

5. Today
 Examples of political propaganda, Definitions
 Theories of political persuasion
 Source, Message & Audience characteristics

6. What is propaganda?
 How would you define it?
 Examples?

7. Hollywood propaganda?
The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Is on Your Screen!

8. War Propaganda
 WWI propaganda
 Nazi propaganda
 Other countries’ persuasion campaigns
 Israeli PM’s controversial campaign ads on RT
 A tacky ISIS-like title card then appears on the screen, which reads: “The left
will give in to terror,” in an apparent reference to the left-wing Israeli
opposition led byTzipi Livni.
 The Isis propaganda war: a hi-tech media jihad
(next slide)

9. The Isis propaganda war: a hi-tech
media jihad
 In 1941, Hollywood director Frank Capra was commissioned
to make a series of propaganda films for the US war effort.
 His resulting seven-film documentary series, Why We Fight, repurposed
footage fromTriumphOfTheWill and other propaganda films to show “our
boys” what they were up against. He even copied Riefenstahl’s editing
rhythms and rousing use of music. “Let their own films kill them,” Capra
said. “Let the enemy prove to our soldiers the enormity of his cause – and
the justness of ours.”
 Leni Riefenstahl:Triumph of theWill (1935) –YouTube
 Just as Islamic State (Isis) has used captured American
artillery against its enemies in Iraq, so it is using the west’s
media tools and techniques against it. Isis has proved fluent in
YouTube,Twitter, Instagram,Tumblr, internet memes (see:
#catsofjihad) and other social media.
 A recent example was a recruitment video consisting of edited footage
from GrandTheft Auto. “Your games which are producing from you, we do
the same actions in the battlefields!! [sic]”
 Beheadings of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid
workers David Haines andAlan Henning

10. Isis Recruitment
London--The apparent trend of studious, seemingly
driven young women leaving home to join violent
jihadists has become disturbingly familiar.
DENVER — Three teenage girls from the Denver
suburbs traveling to Syria to join militants from the
Islamic State were intercepted by American law
enforcement authorities at a German airport over the
weekend and returned to their families, federal law
enforcement officials said on Tuesday.
LONDON — Aqsa Mahmood’s,
20, family saw her as an
intelligent and popular teenager
who helped care for her three
younger siblings and her
grandparents at her home in
Scotland. She listened to
Coldplay, read Harry Potter
novels and drank Irn Bru, a
Scottish soft drink.
She aspired to be a pharmacist
or a doctor, and they did not
expect her to leave her home in
Glasgow in November 2013 to
go to Syria, where the
authorities now say she is one
of the most active recruiters of
young British women to join the
Islamic State.
“Your actions are a perverted
and evil distortion of Islam,” the
family said in their statement,
released through their lawyer,
Aamer Anwar. “You are killing
your family every day with your
actions. They are begging you
to stop if you ever loved them.”

11. Isis Recruitment
 “There are no patterns, and that’s making it
harder for everyone,” she said in an interview
inVirginia late last month. “They can come
from every ethnic, socioeconomic group, any
geographic area. But they are more often
men than women, and they’re getting
younger.”

12. From Minneapolis to ISIS: An
American’s Path to Jihad
His most recent post came on March 8. “All
Warfare,” he wrote, “Is Based on
Deception.”

13. Isis Recruitment
 A 50-page guide for Islamic State volunteers was distributed online
in February, offering practical travel advice on what to pack, and
more tailored counsel on how to avoid detection by the authorities.

14. Beforeturningtopoliticalpropaganda,afew
examplesofcreative&effectiveads

16. Images in the news:

17. “Classic” examples of
political propaganda
“Daisy ad,” 1964
(the power of S1 thinking)
Recent study: More negative ads by Democratic Party; negative ads
contribute to political learning.

18. Examples of political propaganda
Harold Ford Jr not for Tennessee, 2006
Willie Horton ad, 1988
RNC Turnstile ad, 1988
Jesse Helms "Hands" ad, 1990

19. Are these examples of propaganda too?
 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-27-
2012/indecision-2012---how-is-it-that-mitt-romney-
hasn-t-crushed-this-guy-already- (Rick Santorum)
 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-28-
2012/i-can-t-believe-it-got-better- (Fox: Numbers aren’t
real)
 Grover Norquist'sTaxpayer Protection Pledge

20. Definitions
Pratkanis & Aaronson
• Propaganda is an attempt to influence people through
the manipulation of symbols and the psychology of the
individual by playing on the individual’s prejudices and
emotions rather than a reasoned argument about the
merits of the issue.
• The goal of modern propaganda is not education or instilling the truth
or enlightenment of the public. The goal of modern propaganda is not
to inform or enlighten but to move the masses (voluntarily) to a
desired point of view, by any means necessary
• Education, more generally, should provide people with the skills
necessary to make their own decisions; it should encourage critical
thinking.

21. More Definitions
Page & Shapiro, The Rational Public:
• Educate: Individuals or institutions (schools, elected
officials, media, experts), that influence public opinion by
providing correct, helpful information, can be said to educate
the public.
• Mislead: Individuals or institutions that influence public
opinion by providing incorrect, biased, or selective
information, or erroneous interpretations can be said to
mislead the public.
• Manipulate: If government officials or others mislead the
public consciously and deliberately, by means of lies,
falsehoods, deception, or concealment, they manipulate
public opinion

22. Note: Schools aren’t only in the
education business
The State Board of
Education in Texas is one
of the largest, most
influential—and most
conservative— in the
country, and their social-
studies curriculum
guidelines will affect
students around the
country, from
kindergarten to 12th
grade, for the next 10
years. They buy or
distribute a staggering 48
million textbooks annually.

23. Education, Misleading or Manipulation?
Texas Board Others’Views
 Christian activist on theTexas board: “The
philosophy of the classroom in one generation will
be the philosophy of the government in the next.”
 Students required to evaluate the contributions of
significant Americans.The names proposed
includedThurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt
Gingrich,William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Edward Kennedy.All passed muster
except Kennedy, who was voted down.
 “Many of us recognize that Judeo-Christian
principles were the basis of our country and that
many of our founding documents had a basis in
Scripture. As we try to promote a better
understanding of the Constitution, federalism, the
separation of the branches of government, the basic
rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, I think it will
become evident to students that the founders had a
religious motivation.”
 U.S. Historian:Were some of the founders Christian--yes
but some were deists and some agnostic.The basic principles
of the Constitution were to create a new nation based in
democratic Enlightenment principles, not religious principles.
Indeed, Enlightenment philosophy is the antithesis of religious
dogma.
 Benjamin Franklin: “When a religion is good, I conceive it will
support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God
does not take care to support it so that its professors are
obliged to call for help of the civil power, ‘tis a sign, I
apprehend, of its being a bad one.“
 President John Adams: "Nothing is more dreaded than the
national government meddling with religion.“
 PresidentThomas Jefferson: "I consider the government of the
United States as interdicted by the Constitution from
intermeddling with religious institutions. . . . I do not believe it
is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to
direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrine.“
 President James Madison ("Father of the Constitution" and
principal author of the First Amendment): "There is not a
shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle
with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most
flagrant violation.“

24. Education, Misleading or Manipulation on
Climate Change?
Texas McGraw Hill ScienceText (Grade 6) Excerpt:
The Problem:
• Scientists do not disagree
about what is causing
climate change, the vast
majority (97%) of climate
papers and actively
publishing climatologists
(again 97%) agree that
human activity is
responsible.
• The Heartland Institute is
an ideologically driven
advocacy group that
receives funding from Big
Tobacco and polluters and
it is pitted against a Nobel
Peace Prize winning
scientific body (IPCC).

25. McGraw Hill Education, World Cultures &
Geography [Teacher Version] (Grade 6)
Is the earth flat? Can pigs fly? Some scientists disagree.

26. • Hovland’s message-learning (information processing) approach
• Who saysWhat to Whom and How?
• Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
• Peripheral and Central route processing of persuasive messages
• Motivated Reasoning to explain resistance to persuasion
• Zaller’s & Berinsky’s Models of Partisan Cues
Theories of persuasion &
resistance:

27. Questions to keep in mind
 Why do some persuasive appeals work
while others fail?
 What moves political attitudes over time?
 Why have opinions on climate change
become so polarized and resistant to change?
 Why have attitudes on gay marriage changed
so dramatically in the last decade?

28. Carl Hovland’s (1953) Message Learning (Information
Processing) Approach to Attitude Change:
Hovland identified the factors and the
(learning) process by which they influence
attitude change.
Factors:
“Who Says What To Whom and How and with What
Effect?”
Who = Source characteristics
What = Message
Whom = Audience
How = Medium
Effect = Persistence

29. Hovland’s Approach:
Process:“Message Learning” or persuasion requires some degree of
attention, comprehension, yielding & retention. 1950s to 1970s.
Between 1942 and 1945 he worked for the U.S. War Department, studying the effectiveness of training films and
information programs, especially audience resistance to persuasive communications and methods of overcoming
such resistance.
Source effects. One-sided versus two-sided messages.

30. Hovland example: The Influence of Source Credibility on
Communication Effectiveness, 1951.
Randomly assign Ss to: 1) Positive & Negative positions, and 2)
High & low credibility sources.
If we were doing
this study today,
what sources and
issues might we
use?

31. Hovland results: People more likely to accept
the position of high credibility sources, on
average (There was more to his article than
this, of course).

32. Hovland’s Approach: Limitations
 Neither attention nor comprehension of a message
(beyond mere exposure to it) are necessary for attitude
change.
 In other words, people can accept a message even if they didn’t
understand or pay attention to it.
 Examples:
 Feelings of pride when flags wave or patriotic music plays
 Infatuation for attractive or charismatic candidates

33. Source characteristics
Political applications.

34. Political Questions
 Why is disparaging the source
(i.e., character assassination)
such a popular political strategy?
 OK, sometimes they deserve it!
But other times they don’t.
 Why is it so hard to determine
whether a political source can be
trusted these days?
 How do we end up evaluating
the source in politics?

35. Examples of propaganda that focuses
on the source of the message
Use a highly credible source to give weight
to thin, ambiguous or confusing evidence.
Disparaging the source is easier than
responding to a disagreeable message on
its merits.
Colin Powell making the case
for invading Iraq at the UN
http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=EqzKKFJSPvc

36. Another strategy: Sources emphasize their
credentials (credibility), but hide their
conflict of interest (trustworthiness)
NYT: What you don’t know about the source:
Message Machine
Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand , 2005
A PENTAGON CAMPAIGN Retired officers have been used to shape
terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks.
Most of the “analysts” have ties to military contractors vested in
the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. But we
aren’t told that.

37. Scientists & Columnists who fail to disclose major
conflicts of interest
EX1: Scientist who denies climate change receives funding
from fossil fuel corporations
 In a Senate debate in Jan. 2015, Mr. Inhofe pointed to a poster with photos of scientists
questioning the climate-change consensus, including Dr. Soon. “These are scientists that cannot
be challenged,”
 Wei-Hock Soon has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and
in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming. (The
sun did it!)
 He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade
while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers
he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he
appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work.
 The documents were obtained by Greenpeace, the environmental group, under the Freedom of
Information Act.

38. Scientists & Columnists who fail to disclose major
conflicts of interest
EX2: NYT: “On Opinion Page, a Lobby's Hand Is Often Unseen”
 Doug Bandow, a scholar for the libertarian Cato Institute and a columnist for the
Copley News Service, resigned from both after acknowledging that he had received
as much as 2,000 an article from Mr. Abramoff for writing in support of his lobbying
clients, including Indian tribe casinos.
 The Bush administration acknowledged this year that it had paid outside writers,
including Armstrong Williams, the conservative columnist and television
commentator, to promote the Education Department policy known as No Child Left
Behind.
 Bottom line:Columnists and other sources often fail to disclose
conflicts of interest.
EX1: Scientists who fail to disclose conflict of interest:
pharmaceutical and biomedical research funded by private
companies.

39. Attacking the character of a candidate undermines their
credibility as a source of all their messages.
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth
What is “swiftboating”?

40. Swiftboating in elections
 2004: Swift BoatVeterans forTruth helped sink Senator John Kerry's 2004
presidential campaign. Television ads and a bestselling book titled Unfit for Command,
"circulated innuendoes, dubious claims and falsehoods about ... Kerry's patriotism and whether he
deserved three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for service in the US Navy during the
VietnamWar." After the Kerry debacle, swift boating became part of the political vernacular,
coming to mean a campaign of dishonest, unfair, and unreasonable attacks on a politician.
 2008: During the 2008 presidential campaign, a political action committee,
with ties to the Republican Party, tried to re-employ the swift boating
strategy against Obama. Similar to four years earlier, the campaign was highlighted by the
publication of a bestselling book calledThe Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of
Personality, which aimed to brand Obama as having a "messiah" complex, along with "extensive
connections with Islam."
 2012: CNN Accuses Obama of 'Swiftboating' Romney on Bain Capital.

41. Politico, 2012: Verdict is in:
Obama levels more personal attacks
2012 Obama ads argued that there's something
fundamentally wrong with his opponent.
Of course, in his
first 4 years,
Obama was
subjected to so
many personal
assaults from the
right, on issues
such as whether
he is lying about
his place of birth,
his religion or the
content of his
college transcripts.

42. Celebrity endorsements

43. Celebrity endorsements

44. Party Cues, Motivated
Reasoning, Persuasion &
Resistance
The impact of political
propaganda depends on audience
characteristics, especially
partisanship

45. Misinformation can be worse than no information
Political Misperceptions, Motivated Reasoning
and Resistance to Persuasion

46. Two examples of partisan
misperceptions
 July, 2006: widespread support for the
conspiracy theory that Bush administration
officials were complicit in the 9/11 terrorist
attacks.
 “likely” that “[p]eople in the federal government
either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to
stop the attacks because they wanted the United
States to go to war in the Middle East.”
 Apr 21, 2011: CBS News/ NewYorkTimes poll:
25% of all Americans incorrectly think President
Obama was not born in the United States.

47. Two examples of partisan
misperceptions
• Democrats more likely to
believe 9/11 conspiracy
theory
• Republicans more likely
to believe birther myth

48. 2004, “separate realities”
More than a year after the Iraq invasion, after several
reports by the U.S. govt., Republicans more likely to believe:

49. Findings of Commissions on Iraq War, WMD
& al-Qaeda, prior to 2004 election
 1/28/04: U.S. Iraq Survey Group inspector David Kay resigns:
 stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq. "I
don't think they existed," commented Kay. “It turns out that we were all
wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing. [Kay,]
 3/5/04: Former chief U.N. weapons inspector declares Iraq war illegal
 10/7/04: Final Iraq Survey Group (Duelfer) Report (U.S.): Iraq did not
haveWMD
 “Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time
of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to
produce them.”
 June, 2004, 9/11 Commission:
 "to date we have seen no evidence of a collaborative operational relationship
between Iraqi government & al-Qaeda. Nor have we seen evidence indicating
that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks
against the United States.

50. Misperceptions due to?
1. Elites: spread misinformation; media fails to correct
it.
2. Citizens (partisans): Engage in motivated reasoning.

51. Ziva Kunda, social psychologist
Taber & Lodge, political scientists
Motivated reasoning: Who, When,
How, with what Implications?

52. Goals in information processing
and belief updating
1. Accuracy goals (intuitive statistician, rational choice
version): seek out and carefully consider relevant evidence
to reach a correct or otherwise best conclusion.
a) Bayes’ Theorem: We respond to new information the way a
scientist or statistician would respond to evidence in an
experiment, without bias:
p(S|E) = p(E|S )p(S )
p(E)
 Because our prior beliefs should not bias new information, there
should be some updating or belief revision when we encounter new
information inconsistent with our prior beliefs.
 Normative model of belief updating.
 Do people follow this model for political belief updating?

53. Goals in information processing
2. Efficiency (cognitive misers): our prior beliefs
operate as “cold” cognitions, biasing the
processing of new information, by directing our
attention, retention, recall and interpretation of
information.
 One source of bias in perceptions & judgment.

54. Goals in information processing
3. Partisan goals (Motivated reasoning):
a. (Talking about “partisan” in the broadest sense = having a prior
committed position on an issue.)
b. Tendency for people to use their reasoning powers to process
new information in a biased way to support their prior beliefs.
c. Even when told to be accurate, citizens are often pulled by the
emotional charge of their “hot political cognitions.”
 Often immediately and without intentional control, a perceived
candidate, issue, group, or idea is classified as either good or bad,
and in a matter of milliseconds this evaluation prompts motivated
reasoning.
 All political stimuli have an emotional charge.

55. Just about all political concepts in
memory are associated with affect

56. Examples:
 Has the national economy gotten better or
worse over the last year?
 A relatively objective judgment, not like a
candidate’s personal characteristics
 But, members of the president’s party almost
always have rosier perceptions of the economy
than members of the opposition party.
 International:
 Are thereWMD, was Hussein collaborating with Al
Qaida?

57. Who is more susceptible to
motivated reasoning and when?
 Who?Those with more motivation & ability to
defend their attitudes.
 Partisans with stronger prior attitudes have greater
motivation to defend their attitudes.
 More Sophisticated partisans have greater ability
(knowledge) to defend their attitudes.
 When?The message arouses partisanship
 Party or issue elites provide cues
 Message promotes a defensive response:When
communications are charged with partisan conflict
that challenges identities and attitudes (e.g.,
presidential elections).

58. How does motivated reasoning bias our
evaluation of political information?
 Even though participants in their experiments are
instructed repeatedly to “set their feelings aside,” to
“rate the arguments fairly,” and to be as “objective as
possible”…
 Selective exposure: people seek out supportive
arguments.
 Confirmation bias: people treat evidence that supports
their priors as stronger and actively counter-argue
challenging evidence.
 What effect? The net effect will be attitude polarization.
 Q: Is MR more or less likely to occur in the current
political environment? Why?

59. Mechanisms of MR: Lodge & Taber
1. Selective exposure: People tend to
seek out information that confirms
their beliefs and avoid information
that is inconsistent with those views.
 using a computerized information board,
political sophisticates were more likely to
choose to read the arguments of
sympathetic sources than to expose
themselves to an opposing point of view on
affirmative action and gun control.
 As a result, they polarized: subjects who
were most biased in their information
search became more extreme in their
attitudes.

60. Selective exposure

61. Evidence: Lodge & Taber
2. Confirmation & Disconfirmation biases: Partisans process
information with a bias toward their pre-existing views,
disparaging contradictory information while uncritically
accepting information that is consistent with their
beliefs
 When people are asked to rate the strength of arguments,
sophisticates and those with strong priors were biased in rating
the arguments with which they agreed as stronger than those
with which they disagreed.
 **Ps are instructed repeatedly** to “set their feelings aside,” to “rate
the arguments fairly,” and to be as “objective as possible.”
 Attitude polarization results when people seize upon consistent
evidence with little scrutiny, while dismissing out-of-hand evidence that
challenges their prior attitudes

62. Rate the arguments

63. Can misperceptions (i.e., false or
unsubstantiated beliefs) be corrected?
 ‘‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets
you into trouble. It’s what you know for
sure that just ain’t so.’’
---MarkTwain
 Can CDC messages be used to promote
measles vaccinations?
 Can information correct misperceptions
the rationale for the Iraq War?
 What’s worse—no information or
misinformation?

64. Can Center for Disease Control (CDC) messages be
used to promote measles vaccinations?
 “Effective Messages inVaccine Promotion:A RandomizedTrial,” by
Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler, Sean Richey and Gary Freed.
PEDIATRICSVolume 133, Number 4, April 2014
 Persuasive messages and new information can actually make things
worse for some people!

65. Survey experiment: 4 CDC messages
and a Control
1. Control: text about the costs and benefits
of bird feeding.
2. “Autism correction,” presented scientific
evidence debunking the vaccine/autism
link using language drawn nearly verbatim
from the MMR vaccine safety page on the
CDC’sWeb site.
3. “Disease risks,” described symptoms and
adverse events associated with MMR
using text adapted nearly verbatim from
the CDC’s MMR vaccine information
statement.
4. “Disease narrative,” uses a CDC narrative
of a mother recounting her infant son’s
hospitalization with measles.44
5. “Disease images,” presents parents with
pictures of a child who has each disease.
1. Bird feeding…
2. …“No published scientific evidence shows any benefit
in separating the combination MMR vaccine into
three individual shots…”
3. Disease risks:VACCINE INFORMATION STATEMENT
4. Narrative
5. Vaccine Preventable Childhood Diseases
Respondents in a representative sample are
randomly assigned to 5 different conditions Examples of CDC pages/Interventions

66. Impact of the messages on the beliefs of
respondents with the least favorable attitudes
toward vaccines (measured before the experiment)
Correct effect! Backfire effect!
Vaccine
• Fewer strongly agree vaccines cause autism if they read the “Autism Correction” message
• More think vaccines cause harmful side effects if they read the Disease Narrative

67. Impact of the messages on the behavioral intentions of all
respondents (measured before the experiment)
Backfire effect! Small effect No effect
No improvement in likely behavior (& Backfire! in “Autism Correction” condition)
among those with least favorable prior attitudes toward vaccines (they improved
their attitudes (Figure 1) but are less likely to change their behavior (Figure 2)!!

68. Why were Bush supporters’ misperceptions about
Iraq so resistant to information from several
commissions?
 Is it because journalists failed to fact-check
Bush administration statements suggesting
the U.S. had found WMD in Iraq?
 Randomly assign respondents to

69. 2004 experimental treatments
 Bush campaign stop in 2004 says
‘‘There was a risk, a real risk, that
Saddam Hussein would pass
weapons or materials or
information to terrorist networks,
and in the world after September
the 11th, that was a risk we could
not afford to take.’’
 ½ respondents randomly assigned
to receive a “Correction”
 Duelfer, CIA Report says Saddam
Hussein had no WMD and no
capability to produce them.
After reading the article, subjects were asked to state whether they agreed with
this statement (agree = misperception): ‘‘Immediately before the U.S. invasion,
Iraq had an active weapons of mass destruction program, the ability to produce
these weapons, and large stockpiles of WMD, but Saddam Hussein was able to
hide or destroy these weapons right before U.S. forces arrived.’’

70. Results: Conservatives were more likely to
accept WMD misperception if they received the
“correction.” Backfire!

71. 2005 experiment, changed campaign speech
to a statement by Bush and a simple
correction
 This time conservatives were
MORE likely to change their
views than liberals. WHY???

72. Health Care Misperceptions:
Evidence of motivated reasoning
.
• More knowledgeable
Republicans are more
likely to believe
misperceptions about
health care proposals
by Clinton (1993) and
Obama (2009)
• Democrats don’t
believe because…?

73. Implications
 Sophisticated partisans may be more, not less, biased in
their evaluations than unsophisticated partisans.
 Sophisticated partisans (on both the right and the left)
often blindly follow party elites without scrutinizing the
quality of arguments.
 They are more aware of what elites are saying, and have greater
ability and motivation to engage in motivated reasoning.
 Once formed, their attitudes, which might be misinformed, resist
correction.
 Partisan cues can be a powerful means of getting partisans to
accept new attitudes that are resistant to change.
 Source effects can also be powerful for sophisticated
partisans.

74. Dan Kahan, et al. “Cultural Cognition of Scientific
Consensus”
Perceptions of Scientific Consensus
Why do members of the public disagree—sharply and
persistently—about facts on which expert scientists
largely agree?
Quick answer: Motivated reasoning occurs, which creates
polarization

75. Why do liberals and conservatives evaluate
scientific consensus so differently?
Most citizens don’t evaluate the scientific evidence directly, they evaluate
the perceived consensus and expertise of scientists
 Possible ways prior beliefs influence perceived
consensus:
 Selective exposure: People tend to search out
information consistent with their prior beliefs, which is
easier to do with cable news & internet sources
 Recall of instances of experts taking a position
consistent with their beliefs
 Perceptions of “expert” credibility
 When people encounter scientists whose evidence conflicts
with their beliefs, they have a low opinion of their credibility

76. Perceptions of scientific consensus
 “Tell me whether you think most scientific experts
agree with these statements:”
 Global temperatures are increasing.
 Human activity is causing global warming.
 Radioactive wastes from nuclear power can be safely
disposed of in deep underground storage facilities.
 Permitting adults without criminal records or
histories of mental illness to carry concealed
handguns in public decreases violent crime.
 Note:There is a scientific consensus on all but
the last statement, where there is no consensus.

77. Experiment: Evaluate the credibility of
scientists whose research is described as either
supporting or not supporting global warming,
nuclear power & gun control.

78. Read book excerpts of fictional scientists: --
Respondents randomly assigned to 1 of 2 opposing excerpts of
fictional scientists.

79. Experimental Results: Evaluations of the scientist’s
credibility are in the eye of the perceiver.
What this chart should show: Liberals and conservatives evaluate the
scientist who agrees with them as more credible

80. Postscript: Scientific Consensus
 Global temperatures are increasing.
 Human activity is causing global warming.
 NUKE. Radioactive wastes from nuclear power
can be safely disposed of in deep underground
storage facilities.
 Permitting adults without criminal records or
histories of mental illness to carry concealed
handguns in public decreases violent crime.
 Note:There is a scientific consensus on all but the last
statement, where there is no consensus, partly because
the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has been
prevented from collecting data on gun violence.

81. Postscript II: Counter-example
 Why have attitudes on gay marriage changed
so dramatically in the last decade?
 2004: GOP strategy to mobilize religious right by
placing constitutional amendments on the ballot
 2012: Amendments are being struck down and
public support for gay marriage has increased
dramatically.