Puncturing the Knowledge Illusion Does Not Reduce Policy and Political Extremism: Evidence From a Replication and Extension

IF 4 1区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political Psychology Pub Date : 2023-10-30 DOI:10.1111/pops.12938

Richard M. Walker, Jiasheng Zhang, Edmund W. Cheng

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Abstract

Abstract Understanding the formation of and changes in citizens' extreme views on complex public policies is an important task in our increasingly polarized world. Behavioral sciences offer insights on cognitive processes and potential mechanisms to mitigate extremity in policy preferences and develop more realistic models that underprint political attitudes. About a decade ago, Fernbach et al. (2013) offered a simple cognitive intervention to reduce political extremism: Confront people with their lack of procedural policy knowledge such that their overestimation of knowledge is shattered. We conducted three high‐value replications and extensions to examine the applicability of Fernbach's proposed theory among a sample of 5,139 citizens in postconflict Hong Kong. Our results suggest the opposite: Positional extremity is higher when citizens articulate their understanding of policy. Our study, which is larger in scale, draws on different time periods and extended interventions and examines more controversial policy issues has epistemological and cognitive implications for future research on the political psychology of extremism.

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戳破知识幻觉并不能减少政策和政治极端主义:来自复制和延伸的证据

了解公民对复杂公共政策的极端观点的形成和变化，是当今世界日益两极分化的重要任务。行为科学提供了认知过程和潜在机制的见解，以减轻政策偏好的极端性，并开发更现实的模型，以支持政治态度。大约十年前，Fernbach等人(2013)提供了一个简单的认知干预来减少政治极端主义:面对缺乏程序性政策知识的人们，这样他们对知识的高估就会被打破。我们进行了三次高价值的复制和扩展，以检验芬巴赫提出的理论在冲突后香港5139名公民样本中的适用性。我们的结果恰恰相反:当公民表达他们对政策的理解时，位置极端会更高。我们的研究规模更大，利用了不同的时间段和延长的干预措施，并研究了更多有争议的政策问题，这对未来研究极端主义的政治心理学具有认识论和认知意义。

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来源期刊

Political Psychology Multiple-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

6.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Understanding the psychological aspects of national and international political developments is increasingly important in this age of international tension and sweeping political change. Political Psychology, the journal of the International Society of Political Psychology, is dedicated to the analysis of the interrelationships between psychological and political processes. International contributors draw on a diverse range of sources, including clinical and cognitive psychology, economics, history, international relations, philosophy, political science, political theory, sociology, personality and social psychology.