Experimental Measurement of Misperception in Political Beliefs

IF 3.2 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Journal of Experimental Political Science Pub Date : 2021-03-10 DOI:10.1017/XPS.2021.2

Taylor N. Carlson, Seth J. Hill

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引用次数: 6

Abstract

Abstract Recent research suggests widespread misperception about the political views of others. Measuring perceptions often relies on instruments that do not separate uncertainty from inaccuracy. We present new experimental measures of second-order political beliefs. To carefully measure political (mis)perceptions, we have subjects report beliefs as probabilities. To encourage accuracy, we provide micro-incentives for each response. To measure learning, we provide information sequentially about the perception of interest. We illustrate our method by applying it to perceptions of vote choice in the 2016 presidential election. Subjects made inferences about randomly selected American National Election Study (ANES) respondents. Before and after receiving information about the other, subjects reported a probabilistic belief about the other’s vote. We find that perceptions are less biased than in previous work on second-order beliefs. Accuracy increased most with the delivery of party identification and report of a most important problem. We also find evidence of modest egocentric and different-trait bias.

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政治信念误解的实验测量

摘要最近的研究表明，人们对他人的政治观点普遍存在误解。衡量感知往往依赖于没有将不确定性与不准确度区分开来的工具。我们提出了二阶政治信仰的新的实验测量方法。为了仔细衡量政治（错误）认知，我们让受试者将信念报告为概率。为了鼓励准确性，我们为每个响应提供微观激励。为了衡量学习，我们依次提供有关兴趣感知的信息。我们通过将我们的方法应用于2016年总统选举中对选票选择的看法来说明我们的方法。受试者对随机选择的美国国家选举研究（ANES）受访者进行了推断。在收到关于另一方的信息之前和之后，受试者报告了对另一方投票的概率信念。我们发现，与之前关于二阶信念的工作相比，感知的偏见更少。随着一个最重要问题的当事人身份和报告的提供，准确性提高最多。我们还发现了适度自我中心和不同特质偏见的证据。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Experimental Political Science Social Sciences-Sociology and Political Science

CiteScore

5.10

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS) features cutting-edge research that utilizes experimental methods or experimental reasoning based on naturally occurring data. We define experimental methods broadly: research featuring random (or quasi-random) assignment of subjects to different treatments in an effort to isolate causal relationships in the sphere of politics. JEPS embraces all of the different types of experiments carried out as part of political science research, including survey experiments, laboratory experiments, field experiments, lab experiments in the field, natural and neurological experiments. We invite authors to submit concise articles (around 4000 words or fewer) that immediately address the subject of the research. We do not require lengthy explanations regarding and justifications of the experimental method. Nor do we expect extensive literature reviews of pros and cons of the methodological approaches involved in the experiment unless the goal of the article is to explore these methodological issues. We expect readers to be familiar with experimental methods and therefore to not need pages of literature reviews to be convinced that experimental methods are a legitimate methodological approach. We will consider longer articles in rare, but appropriate cases, as in the following examples: when a new experimental method or approach is being introduced and discussed or when novel theoretical results are being evaluated through experimentation. Finally, we strongly encourage authors to submit manuscripts that showcase informative null findings or inconsistent results from well-designed, executed, and analyzed experiments.