Replication Data for: How Getting the Facts Right Can Fuel Partisan Motivated Reasoning

Scholars often evaluate citizens' democratic competence by focusing on their ability to get relevant facts right. In this article, I show why this approach can yield misleading conclusions about citizen competence. I argue that while citizens with strong partisan loyalties might be forced to accept the same facts, they find alternative ways to rationalize reality. One such way, I show, is through the selective attribution of credit and blame. With four randomized experiments, conducted in diverse national settings and containing closed- as well as open-ended questions, I find that as partisans updated economic beliefs to reflect new facts, they conversely attributed responsibility in a highly selective fashion. Although partisans might acknowledge the same facts, they are apt in seizing on and producing attributional arguments that fit their preferred world views.

学者们通常以公民准确掌握相关事实的能力为标尺，评估其民主能力（democratic competence）。本文旨在阐明，为何此类研究路径会得出关于公民能力的误导性结论。笔者认为，尽管拥有强烈党派忠诚度的公民可能被迫接受相同的事实，但他们会通过其他方式为现实做出合理化解释。其中一种方式便是选择性功过归因（selective attribution of credit and blame）。本研究依托四项在多国调研场景下开展的随机实验，实验同时涵盖封闭式与开放式问题，研究发现：当党派人士更新自身经济信念以契合新事实时，反而会以高度选择性的方式进行责任归因。尽管党派人士可能认同相同的事实，但他们往往会刻意选取并构建契合自身偏好世界观的归因论证。