Motivated Reasoning in Identity Politics: Group Status as a Moderator of Political Motivations
| Author | Loes Aaldering,Ming M Boyer,Sophie Lecheler |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720964667 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720964667
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(2) 385 –401
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720964667
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Motivated Reasoning in
Identity Politics: Group Status
as a Moderator of Political
Motivations
Ming M Boyer1, Loes Aaldering2
and Sophie Lecheler1
Abstract
Western democracies are increasingly defined by identity politics, where politics appeals to both
political and other social identities. Consequently, political information processing should depend
not just on political identity, but also on other identities, such as gender, race, or sexuality. For
any given issue, we argue that the extent to which reasoning is motivated by one’s political identity
depends on citizens’ group status in other relevant identities, that is, that political identity more
strongly motivates high-status group members than low-status group members for issues of identity
politics. A survey experiment (N = 1012) concerning a gender quota policy shows that political
identity motivates men more strongly than women, leading to political polarization between left-
wing and right-wing men, but not women. This suggests that political motivated reasoning should
be addressed differently in situations of identity politics, and urges the consideration of group
status as a conditional factor of motivated reasoning.
Keywords
motivated reasoning, group status, polarization, experimentation, gender
Accepted: 14 September 2020
With the rise of identity-based grass-roots movements (De Benedictis et al., 2019; Yang,
2016) and right-wing populism (Rooduijn et al., 2019), identity politics seems to have
become increasingly important in many democracies. Yet, research on information pro-
cessing and political attitude formation has had a strong focus on partisan or ideological
identifications. Such research on “motivated reasoning” has shown that partisan identifi-
cation causes asymmetrical reasoning patterns and polarization between partisan groups
1Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
2 Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Free University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Corresponding author:
Ming M Boyer, Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Email: ming.manuel.boyer@univie.ac.at
964667PCX0010.1177/0032321720964667Political StudiesBoyer et al.
research-article2020
Article
386 Political Studies 70(2)
(e.g. Kahan, 2013; Slothuus and De Vreese, 2010; Taber and Lodge, 2006). However, we
are not just partisans. In fact, our self-conceptions consist of multiple social identities that
influence our thought and behavior (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). As such, other social
groups, like gender, race, or religious groups, can cause similar motivated reasoning
effects as political groups (e.g. Kahan et al., 2007; Landrum et al., 2017). The current
surge of identity politics therefore undermines traditional understanding of political moti-
vated reasoning: how important are political identities1 in the processing of information
regarding identity politics?
We argue that many political issues bear relevance for both political and alternative
social identities and that they should be investigated as such (see also Feldman and
Huddy, 2018). To predict how strongly political identity motivates citizens’ reasoning at
a given time, we suggest to further investigate one component of Social Identity Theory
that has not yet received much attention in the motivated reasoning literature: group sta-
tus. Tajfel and Turner (1986) predicted that certain lower-status groups will adopt a
“social change mindset” when threatened, to protect their groups’ position. In other
words, citizens of lower-status groups—like women or racial minorities—have a larger
stake in protecting that identity group and are thus less strongly motivated by their politi-
cal identity than high-status group members, for issues of identity politics.
We test this hypothesis for the case of a recently instated gender quota policy for cor-
porate supervisory boards in Austria (N = 1021). Gender quotas are a gendered issue that
is also strongly incorporated in the left/right ideological party structure (Terjesen et al.,
2015). As there is a clear group status difference, where men enjoy more status and power
in society than women, we expect that men will be more strongly motivated by their
political identity than women. By exposing participants to a news article that argues either
in favor or against the gender quota, compared with an unrelated control condition, we
confirm this expectation. Thereby, we show that political motivated reasoning in response
to identity politics is not universal, but rather depends on the societal status of the group
that citizens belong to. This questions the way we think about the processing of political
information that bears relevance for gender, race, and other social identities.
Social Identification in Motivated Reasoning Research
What motivates political reasoning? As reasoning seems to play a crucial role in the for-
mation of political attitudes (Taber and Lodge, 2006), this question lies at the heart of
political science. Besides the motivation to hold accurate beliefs, citizens also have direc-
tional motivations, or motivations to reach a certain predetermined belief. Directional
motivations can stem from the desire to uphold prior attitudes (Taber and Lodge, 2006) or
from the desire to keep a favorable view on the political party one identifies with (Slothuus
and De Vreese, 2010). Congruently, citizens often process information in such a way that
makes it possible to reach a predetermined outcome, which is often associated with an
increase in political polarization (Taber and Lodge, 2006). According to Kunda (1990:
440), such directional motivations can be “any wish, desire or preference that concerns
the outcome of a given reasoning task.” The question is, what are citizens’ “wishes,
desires or preferences” regarding the outcome of political reasoning?
Many scholars agree that the motivations that underlie asymmetric political reason-
ing are often based on social identification and have studied reasoning as motivated by
political groups. Identifying with a group is a basic form of human motivation
(Baumeister and Leary, 1995), and party identification can drive persuasion more
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