Hearing the Other Side? – Debiasing Political Opinions in the Case of the Scottish Independence Referendum
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Céline Colombo |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321717723486 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(1) 23 –42
Hearing the Other Side? –
© The Author(s) 2017
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Debiasing Political Opinions
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717723486
DOI: 10.1177/0032321717723486
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in the Case of the Scottish
Independence Referendum
Céline Colombo
Abstract
This study reports the effects of two debiasing strategies on the complexity of people’s thinking
on a controversial policy issue – the question of Scottish independence. I start from the well-
researched assumptions of motivated reasoning theory that individuals tend to protect their
beliefs, are often not willing to hear the other side and fail to integrate contrasting arguments and
different perspectives in their political considerations – although considering different viewpoints
is a fundamental normative requirement for democratic decision-making. Two different debiasing
techniques, which are meant to counteract this tendency and to evoke more integrative and
complex thinking, were tested experimentally: a cognitive and a motivational strategy. The
experiment was situated in the context of the Scottish independence referendum. The expectation
of accountability – having to justify one’s opinion in front of unknown others – significantly
enhanced integrative complexity of thinking about the issue, while inducing subjects to consider
the opposite had no significant effect. Opinion strength and political knowledge did not affect the
treatment effects significantly.
Keywords
motivated reasoning, cognitive complexity, citizen competence, referendum, direct democracy
Accepted: 20 May 2017
Biases in political thinking have received much attention in political psychology, and
their pervasiveness is by now well documented (Lau and Redlawsk, 2001; Leeper and
Slothuus, 2014; Redlawsk, 2002). As Taber and Lodge (2006: 576) have noted, in poli-
tics, ‘all reasoning is motivated’. However, new questions arise now: What is a consid-
ered and unbiased opinion? Which psychological mechanisms underlie motivational and
cognitive biases? And how can such biases be counteracted? These questions have
received much less attention so far (Bolsen et al., 2014). As Druckman (2012) pointed
Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
Corresponding author:
Céline Colombo, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zürich,
Switzerland.
Email: colombo@ipz.uzh.ch
24
Political Studies 66(1)
out, motivated reasoning occurs under certain conditions and depends on an individual’s
motivation and the context. He considers the role of different conditions in prompting
accurate versus motivated reasoning a ‘particularly fruitful area in need of more study’
(Druckman, 2012: 206). This study approaches these questions by testing two different
debiasing mechanisms. To this purpose, a laboratory opinion experiment was run in the
forefront of the Scottish independence referendum. I found that announcing that subjects
will have to justify their opinions in a group discussion at the end of the experiment
(‘accountability’) has a positive effect on the considerateness of subjects’ opinions. A
considered opinion is defined as one which integrates different perspectives of an issue
and which is well justified with substantive arguments. This study adds to a recent debate
in political psychology on the conditions, under which motivated reasoning occurs in
offering possible strategies to reduce it. This article proceeds as follows: I start by explain-
ing the main concepts and by developing hypotheses. Next, I describe the experimental
design. Finally, I present and discuss the results.
Motivated Reasoning and Considered Opinions
Citizens’ participation in political decisions constitutes the very essence of democracy.
Since democracy exists, citizen competence to participate in political decisions has been
questioned though. This is true for representative democracy, but the scepticism is even
greater for direct democratic decisions where citizens decide over policy matters them-
selves. Citizens’ low political knowledge levels have often been criticised in public opin-
ion research (Converse, 1964; Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996). More recently, however,
the question arose whether high political knowledge is an adequate measure of citizen
competence at all – as political scientists discovered the concept of motivated reasoning
(Kunda, 1990; Lau and Redlawsk, 2006; Lodge and Taber, 2013; Redlawsk, 2002;
Redlawsk and Lau, 2005; Taber and Lodge, 2006). Motivated reasoning describes a pro-
cess whereby (political) reasoning is not necessarily led by a goal to be accurate (an
accuracy goal) – which would correspond to a normative ideal – but more often by direc-
tional goals, such as a personal motivation to protect existing beliefs or to follow a certain
party line. A directional goal is defined as ‘when a person is motivated to arrive at a par-
ticular conclusion’ (Kunda, 1999: 236). This means that citizens select and process infor-
mation in a biased way, preferring information that is consistent with their existing
knowledge and disregarding and/or devaluating incompatible information.
Recent studies have found evidence for motivated reasoning processes on political
opinions on different issues such as the 2003 Iraq war (Gaines et al., 2007), political cor-
ruption in Spain (Anduiza et al., 2013), climate change policies (Hart and Nisbet, 2011),
perceptions of the economy (Evans and Andersen, 2006; Gerber and Huber, 2010;
Ramirez and Erickson, 2014) or welfare and health-care policies (Bullock, 2011; Cohen,
2003). Leeper and Slothuus (2014) give an excellent review of the recent debates on
motivated reasoning.
Given the intense research interest in motivated reasoning and biased thinking, it is
surprising that only little thought has been devoted to the question how to counteract
these biases and how to foster considered opinions. So far, political scientists have con-
centrated on analysing various factors moderating biased thinking – in particular political
sophistication, opinion strength, elite polarisation and message repetition (Druckman
et al., 2013). Only very recently, the question about the impact of motivations and cogni-
tive mechanisms at the time of opinion formation was raised (see Bolsen et al., 2014;
Colombo
25
Leeper and Slothuus, 2014). This study adds to this current debate by testing the effect of
two different experimental stimuli on the considerateness of political opinions.
Why is it important to study ‘considered opinions’? This is a concept, which has not
received much attention in political psychology and public opinion research so far. I think
it is worth exploring this concept more in depth for at least two reasons. First, on a theo-
retical level, a political decision taken by citizens who hold well-considered opinions is
more legitimate. On one side, considered opinions are supposed to be more resistant to
manipulation by elites and news media. The concern that elites and opinion leaders might
manipulate public opinion is an old one (Katz, 1957; Schattschneider, 1975; Schumpeter,
1950). More recently, the large literature on framing effects has shown (Chong, 2013;
Chong and Druckman, 2007; Druckman et al., 2013; Sniderman and Theriault, 2004)
how citizens’ opinions are often malleable and susceptible to the way political informa-
tion is presented to them. The problem then is that citizens’ opinions, when they are
manipulated, do not anymore reflect their values and political predispositions.
But not only elite manipulation or distorted information can be problematic: as the
literature on motivated reasoning summarised above shows, we often follow ‘in-built’
cognitive biases and heuristics when we form our opinions, such as trying to protect our
own beliefs or blindly following party cues. These cognitive heuristics can constitute
efficiency-enhancing shortcuts, which bring us to a reasonable decision with less effort,
as has been argued by some (Bowler and Donovan, 1998; Lupia, 1994; Lupia et al., 2000).
But they may also lead us astray, if we blindly rely on our party’s position or if we are not
ready to update our opinions in light of new evidence.
Second and related to the first point, on an empirical level, the study of citizen compe-
tence has often focused on factual political knowledge (Lavine et al., 2012). The gold
standard of the knowledgeable citizen is called in question though, by studies, which find
that often the more knowledgeable are more prone to cognitive biases such as motivated
reasoning. Thus, it is important that opinions are not only informed but also well consid-
ered (Fishkin, 2009; Yankelovich, 1991). Therefore, I present an attempt to move in the
direction of measuring ‘considered opinions’ in order to assess citizen competence instead
of relying exclusively on factual knowledge scores. This study presents a suggestion of
how such a considered opinion can be operationalised empirically.
The questions how to define and measure considered opinions are not trivial. One
option, which is compatible with a deliberative model of democracy, is to set the consid-
eration of different viewpoints and alternative arguments, as well as the ability to justify
one’s position, as a desirable standard for...
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