One of the most infamous and dispiriting findings in recent political science research is that partisans can’t even agree on basic facts, at least when those facts bear on politics. …
But there’s always been a question about how serious the respondents in these studies are. Maybe the Republicans in the Nyhan-Reifler study knew that there weren’t any WMDs, but they wanted to signal support for the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush, and so answered incorrectly. Answering incorrectly, under this view, is just a way to register an opinion in the survey, not an expression of what the survey respondent actually believes. Partisans aren’t closed off from reality, by this theory. They’re just lying.
Political scientists John Bullock, Alan Gerber, Gregory Huber (all at Yale) and Seth Hill (at UC-San Diego) have a new paper that presents strong evidence for the they’re-just-liars theory. [cont.]
Dylan Matthews, Washington Post