The role of evidence in politics: Motivated reasoning and persuasion among politicians.
Open accessAbstract
Does evidence help politicians make informed decisions even if it is at odds with their prior beliefs? And does providing more evidence increase the likelihood that politicians will be enlightened by the information? Based on the literature on motivated political reasoning and the theory about affective tipping points, this article hypothesizes that politicians tend to reject evidence that contradicts their prior attitudes, but that increasing the amount of evidence will reduce the impact of prior attitudes and strengthen their ability to interpret the information correctly. These hypotheses are examined using randomized survey experiments with responses from 954 Danish politicians, and results from this sample are compared to responses from similar survey experiments with Danish citizens. The experimental findings strongly support the hypothesis that politicians are biased by prior attitudes when interpreting information. However, in contrast to expectations, the findings show that the impact of prior attitudes increases when more evidence is provided.
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Decision-makers are prone to selectively seek and interpret information in light of preexisting stereotypes, beliefs, and social identities.
“Following a motivated reasoning logic, this growing body of literature has established that decision-makers are prone to selectively seek and interpret information in light of preexisting stereotypes, beliefs, and social identities.”
From Human–AI Interactions in Public Sector Decision Making: “Automation Bias” and “Selective Adherence” to Algorithmic Advice (2023) · cites this paper as Baekgaard et al. 2019
The Discussion (page not provided) says politicians’ prior attitudes affect how they interpret information, and Experiments 1 and 2 report poorer interpretations when information conflicts with those attitudes. The Discussion describes selective attention under information overload as a possible explanation, but the paper does not establish that decision-makers selectively seek information or that social identities drive the effect. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredDecision-makers assign greater weight to information congruent with prior beliefs and contest inputs that contradict them.
“They assign greater weight to information congruent with prior beliefs and contest inputs that contradict them”
From Human–AI Interactions in Public Sector Decision Making: “Automation Bias” and “Selective Adherence” to Algorithmic Advice (2023) · cites this paper as Baekgaard et al. 2019
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“They assign greater weight to information congruent with prior beliefs and contest inputs that contradict them (Baekgaard et al. 2019; Baekgaard and Serritzlew 2016; Christensen et al. 2018; Christensen 2018; James and Van Ryzin 2017; Jilke 2017; Jilke and Baekgaard 2020).”
Background
- Authors
- Baekgaard, M., Christensen, J., Dahlmann, C. M., Mathiasen, A., & Petersen, N. B. G.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Venue
- British Journal of Political Science
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2017-08-18
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1117-1140
- ISSN
- 0007-1234 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-2112
- OpenAlex
- W2749654197
- Cited by
- 209
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 12.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- British Journal of Political Science (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- motivated reasoning, evidence-based policy, politicians, prior attitudes, persuasion, information processing, political decision-making
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