How political opinions are formed

[Bootstrap]

Here's something I notice over and over again: people tend to think those who disagree with them are just echoing "political talking points", but they themselves have thought things through. Turns out, there have been studies on how most people form political opinions. Here is one useful paper:

The Causal Effects of Elite Position-Taking on Voter Attitudes: Field Experiments with Elite Communication

There are three basic theories for how people form their political opinions:

• Issue Voting: Some people think that citizens mainly judge politicians based on their policy positions, and politicians try to match what the citizens want.
• Position Adoption: Another perspective says that citizens trust the judgments of politicians and do not require persuasive arguments to change their views on issues.
• Elite Persuasion: Others believe that citizens' opinions are shaped by politicians and influential people who can convince them to change their minds.

So which is right? Well ... the article says it's not that simple, none of these ideas explains everything about politics.

But they did an experiment to see if politicians can change people's minds simply by stating their positions. They did experiments with real politicians and found that citizens were more likely to agree with their politicians when they knew their positions. Providing more reasons or justifications didn't change people's opinions much. All a politician needs to do is tell them the position they are taking, and people who share a political identity with that politician generally adopt that position.

They also looked at whether citizens liked their politicians less when they found out the politicians disagreed with them on issues. Surprisingly, they found that this didn't make people like their politicians less, even when politicians didn't give many reasons for their positions.

So in general, positions do not seem to drive political opinions. If someone who represents your political identity starts offering a particular position, you are very likely to start echoing that position. But you probably are not consciously aware that you are doing that. And you're pretty sure that's what those other people are doing ...

[temporal1]

Presently, conservatives have an “advantage” in that lib/msm views are everywhere, beyond escape.
Thus, conservatives may be more overall informed, whereas libs would have to make a conscious effort to be informed.

There is no INHERENTLY better group, it’s the present scheme of things.

When i was young, in the 60’s-70’s, the script was largely flipped.
Making the added effort for the sake of balance isn’t most people’s fav hobby.

A readily recognized example of dedicated tone-deafness was hills’ 2016 reference to “basket of deplorables.”

[barnhart]

Economics.

[GaryK]

Here's something I notice over and over again: people tend to think those who disagree with them are just echoing "political talking points", but they themselves have thought things through. Turns out, there have been studies on how most people form political opinions. Here is one useful paper:

The Causal Effects of Elite Position-Taking on Voter Attitudes: Field Experiments with Elite Communication

There are three basic theories for how people form their political opinions:

• Issue Voting: Some people think that citizens mainly judge politicians based on their policy positions, and politicians try to match what the citizens want.
• Position Adoption: Another perspective says that citizens trust the judgments of politicians and do not require persuasive arguments to change their views on issues.
• Elite Persuasion: Others believe that citizens' opinions are shaped by politicians and influential people who can convince them to change their minds.

So which is right? Well ... the article says it's not that simple, none of these ideas explains everything about politics.

But they did an experiment to see if politicians can change people's minds simply by stating their positions. They did experiments with real politicians and found that citizens were more likely to agree with their politicians when they knew their positions. Providing more reasons or justifications didn't change people's opinions much. All a politician needs to do is tell them the position they are taking, and people who share a political identity with that politician generally adopt that position.

They also looked at whether citizens liked their politicians less when they found out the politicians disagreed with them on issues. Surprisingly, they found that this didn't make people like their politicians less, even when politicians didn't give many reasons for their positions.

So in general, positions do not seem to drive political opinions. If someone who represents your political identity starts offering a particular position, you are very likely to start echoing that position. But you probably are not consciously aware that you are doing that. And you're pretty sure that's what those other people are doing ...

And some people who disagree with certain others get called Trumpies...you have to wonder what formed that opinion?