Inferential Spillover: Measuring the Political Causes of Factual Resistance

• In Event: Facts, Fake News, and Resistance to the Truth

Abstract

A decade’s experimental research has demonstrated that factual corrections reliably improve factual accuracy. Earlier research, and motivated reasoning findings more generally, suggested that experimental subjects were inclined to counter-argue unwelcome factual interventions, and in so doing, inadvertently entrench some factually inaccurate positions. How should we resolve this apparent contradiction? This paper attempts one such resolution by measuring the separate effect of corrections, both without a political inference, and when a clear political inference is attempted. We find that attempting political inferences from a factual intervention sharply blunts factual interventions, but only when those inferences are drawn from a respondent’s opposing ideological position. Along with resolving these apparently inconsistent lines of research, this finding offers clear prescriptive advice for those who provide factual interventions in a mass media setting.

Authors

• Thomas Wood, The Ohio State University

• Yamil Velez, Columbia University

• Ethan Porter, George Washington University