Identity-motivated reasoning: Biased judgments regarding political leaders and their actions

Sharon Arieli, Adi Amit, Sari Mentser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We investigate how constituents interpret information about political leaders in the course of forming judgments about them. More specifically, we are interested in the intentionality attributed to the actions and decisions taken by political leaders – whether they are perceived as designed to benefit the politician's own interests, or the interests of the public. In two field studies, we show that the political orientation of constituents plays a central role in driving constituents’ judgments about political leaders and their actions (in terms of beneficiary attributions), reflecting an identity-motivated reasoning process. Political leaders of the ingroup are perceived more favorably than political leaders of the outgroup, in terms of trust and a desire to see that leader represent the country in the international arena. More interestingly, constituents are likely to attribute the actions of ingroup leaders as intended to benefit the country (national interests), and the actions of outgroup leaders as intended to benefit the political leaders themselves (egoistic interests).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)64-73
Number of pages10
JournalCognition
Volume188
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the Israeli Science Foundation awarded to the first author (grant No. 655/17 ) and to the second author (grant No. 351/13 ).

Funding Information:
We thank Adva Liberman, Almog Liberman, and Sharon Shilon for their work on data coding, and Andrey Elster, Adi Berson, Noam Keshet, Zohar Weinstein, Margalit Kluger, Anna Schwartz, Adva Liberman, and Meira Ben-Gad for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We wish to express our deepest gratitude and appreciation to our mentors and friends ? Lilach Sagiv and Sonia Roccas ? for their invaluable personal and professional support. This research was supported by grants from the Israeli Science Foundation awarded to the first author (grant No. 655/17) and to the second author (grant No. 351/13). None.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

  • Attributions
  • Ingroup favoritism
  • Political leaders
  • Social identity

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