The Big Lie: Expressive Responding and Misperceptions in the United States

IF 3.2 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Journal of Experimental Political Science Pub Date : 2022-12-21 DOI:10.1017/XPS.2022.33

James J. Fahey

引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract Misinformation about events surrounding the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic pose an existential threat to American democracy and public health. Public opinion surveys reveal that high percentages of Republicans indicate that they endorse some aspects of mistaken beliefs surrounding election fraud in the 2020 election. Still, understanding how to measure the endorsement of misperceptions is critical for understanding the threat at hand. Are high levels of mistaken beliefs genuinely held, or are they partially a function of expressive responding? I address this question through a set of survey experiments encouraging accuracy-oriented processing among the general public. Using well-powered surveys of Republicans and Independents, I find that treatments designed to encourage more accurate responses are ineffective in reducing the endorsement of partisan electoral and public health misperceptions and can in some cases even backfire. These findings suggest that support for these misperceptions is genuinely held.

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大谎言:美国的表达性回应和误解

关于2020年大选和COVID-19大流行事件的错误信息对美国民主和公共卫生构成了生存威胁。民意调查显示，很高比例的共和党人表示，他们支持有关2020年选举舞弊的某些方面的错误看法。然而，了解如何衡量对误解的认可，对于了解手头的威胁至关重要。高水平的错误信念是真实存在的，还是部分是表达性反应的功能?我通过一系列调查实验来解决这个问题，鼓励公众进行以准确性为导向的处理。通过对共和党人和无党派人士的有力调查，我发现，旨在鼓励更准确回应的治疗方法在减少党派选举和公共卫生误解方面是无效的，在某些情况下甚至会适得其反。这些发现表明，对这些误解的支持是真实的。

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.