Why People “Don’t Trust the Evidence”: Motivated Reasoning and Scientific Beliefs
Abstract
In this commentary, we embed the volume’s contributions on public beliefs about science in a broader theoretical discussion of motivated political reasoning. The studies presented in the preceding section of the volume consistently find evidence for hyperskepticism toward scientific evidence among ideologues, no matter the domain or context—and this skepticism seems to be stronger among conservatives than liberals. Here, we show that these patterns can be understood as part of a general tendency among individuals to defend their prior attitudes and actively challenge attitudinally incongruent arguments, a tendency that appears to be evident among liberals and conservatives alike. We integrate the empirical results reported in this volume into a broader theoretical discussion of the John Q. Public model of information processing and motivated reasoning, which posits that both affective and cognitive reactions to events are triggered unconsciously. We find that the work in this volume is largely consistent with our theories of affect-driven motivated reasoning and biased attitude formation.
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In the motivated reasoning account, polarization has strengthened partisans' willingness to ignore or counter-argue with credible facts that cast aspersions on their party or party leaders and to uncritically accept false information that reflects favorably on their side.
“In this motivated reasoning account, polarization has strengthened partisans' willingness to ignore or counter-argue with credible facts that cast aspersions on their party or party leaders and, conversely, to uncritically accept false information that reflects favorably on their side (Gaines et al., 2007;Shapiro and Block-Elkon, 2008;Kraft et al., 2015).”
From Partisan Gaps in Political Information and Information-Seeking Behavior: Motivated Reasoning or Cheerleading? (2019) · cites this paper as Kraft et al., 2015
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Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?
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“…partisans’ willingness to ignore or counter-argue with credible facts that cast aspersions on their party or party leaders and, conversely, to uncritically accept false information that reflects favorably on their side (Gaines et al., 2007; Shapiro and Block-Elkon, 2008; Kraft et al., 2015).”
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- Authors
- Kraft, P. W., Lodge, M., & Taber, C. S.
- ORCID
- Kraft, Patrick W.
- Venue
- The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-02-08
- Volume
- 658
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 121-133
- ISSN
- 0002-7162 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3349
- OpenAlex
- W2098743176
- Cited by
- 283
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 9
- FWCI
- 64.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- motivated reasoning, public trust in science, ideological partisanship, liberals and conservatives
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