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PreprintCited by 7Decision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsElectoral Systems and Political ParticipationMedia Influence and Politics

Selection Neglect and Political Beliefs

Open access
Brundage, Matthew, Little, Andrew T., You, Soosun·2022
DOI 10.31219/osf.io/p49at
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Abstract

Individuals, like researchers, often have to form beliefs about the political world from non-representative samples; e.g., their friends, what they see on TV, or content on social media. Substantial evidence indicates that many struggle to account for this selection problem, and generally form beliefs as if what they observe is representative. In this review, we provide a formal typology of how this phenomenon of selection neglect affects political beliefs. Homophily leads individuals to believe others’ traits and beliefs are closer to their own. The squeaky wheel effect biases beliefs towards more visible or vocal groups. And the man bites dog effect leads to excessive belief in extreme or unusual events. Selection neglect is a unifying way to understand disparate literatures on perceptions of the economy and demographics, beliefs about others beliefs, partisan media, and social media. Much empirical work is consistent with biased beliefs driven by selection neglect, but rarely directly tests this mechanism outside of lab settings. We discuss how future research can provide more direct evidence.

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  • Fully adjusting for biases is a challenge even for extremely well-informed and sophisticated thinkers.

    “Unfortunately, fully adjusting for biases is a challenge even for extremely well-informed and sophisticated thinkers.”

    From Measuring Democratic Backsliding (2024) · cites this paper as Brundage, Little, and You 2022

    Section 4, “Experimental Work on the Mechanism” (page unavailable), says people often fail to adjust for biased samples and that making the bias more obvious reduces but does not eliminate the error. The paper also mentions errors by people with statistical expertise, but does not establish that extremely well-informed and sophisticated thinkers struggle to fully adjust for the selection biases at issue. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • There is strong evidence across a variety of topics and subject pools that people make substantial errors when faced with selection problems in the samples that they observe.

    “There is strong evidence across a variety of topics and subject pools that people make substantial errors when faced with selection problems in the samples that they observe (see Enke 2020 for a prominent recent example and Brundage, Little, and You 2022 for a review).”

    From Measuring Democratic Backsliding (2024) · cites this paper as Brundage, Little, and You 2022

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11 of the 179 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 14

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  10. Knell, M. and Stix, H. (2020b). Perceptions of inequality. European Journal of Political Economy, 65:1-21.
  11. Monk-Turner, E., Heiserman, M., Johnson, C., Cotton, V., and Jackson, M. (2010). The Portrayal of Racial Minorities on Prime Time Television: A Replication of the Mastro and Greenberg Study a Decade Later. Studies in Popular Culture, 32(2):101-114. Publisher: Popular Culture Association in the South.
  12. Newman, B. J., Velez, Y., Hartman, T. K., and Bankert, A. (2015b). Are Citizens "Receiving the Treatment"? Assessing a Key Link in Contextual Theories of Public Opinion and Political Behavior: Receiving the Treatment. Political Psychology, 36(1):123-131.
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Authors
Brundage, M., Little, A. T., & You, S.
Affiliations
  • Yale University (US)
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
ORCID
Publisher
Center for Open Science
Published
2022-07-05
DOI
10.31219/osf.io/p49at
OpenAlex
W4284680144
Cited by
7
References
179
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4
Type
posted content
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (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 › Media Influence and Politics
Keywords
political beliefs, homophily, belief formation, non-representative samples, partisan media, social media

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