![]() Why are so many people biased about politics?Īt the end of the test, Schubert also provides an explanation of why political bias occurs. ![]() Schubert argues that political bias, in one form or another, is part of both of these explanations. But this is precisely the behavior we would expect from someone whose original answers were influenced by their values or ideology - the payment makes people think about the questions more thoroughly, rather than just going with their political gut feeling. If your factual beliefs were acquired independently of your political views, then it’s not clear why you would change those beliefs simply because you were getting paid. One reason to be skeptical of this alternative explanation comes from a recent study that found test takers' factual answers and political views were less aligned when people were paid for getting correct answers. But in principle, it could be that they acquired their factual beliefs independently of any political ideology - and later chose the ideology that best fit their views. This test is based on the assumption that the best explanation for a correlation between someone’s factual answers and their political views is that their political views have tainted their evaluation of those factual issues. "Should I tell them what I really think about the gun control research literature? How good is this as an approach to measuring bias? By contrast, someone who is not politically biased is likely to be correct about as often about facts that support as conflict with their viewpoint. People who are biased are more likely to answer correctly on questions where the correct answer supports their ideology, but incorrectly when the correct answer conflicts with that ideology. So Schubert’s test estimates your degree of bias by testing your empirical knowledge of political issues, and seeing how often your views on purely factual matters align with or contradict your values. If I believe it’s wrong to kill criminals, then I’m more likely to think the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, for example. Our ideologies and values tend to influence what we believe about purely empirical issues. But in practice, it’s difficult for most of us to keep these two things separate. If you believe it’s always wrong to restrict an individual’s freedom, that belief is entirely independent of whether gun control does in fact reduce crime rates. In theory, the value judgments that each of us holds shouldn't affect what we believe about empirical issues. Or I might believe the death penalty doesn’t reduce homicide rates but that it should still be used, because the most horrific crimes always deserve to be punished by death. I might believe, for example, that the death penalty does reduce homicide rates but still be against death penalty overall, because I believe it’s wrong for the state to kill citizens regardless of the consequences. We also have to make value judgments, judgments about the way we want the world to be. ![]() We first need to consider empirical questions about the real-world consequences of a given policy - does the death penalty tend to reduce homicide rates, for example?īut merely knowing the answer to these empirical questions isn’t enough. When thinking about political questions, two different types of issues are relevant. We produced this test to help people spot, and ultimately overcome, any blind spots they might have on political issues, by giving them a more objective measure of the ways in which they might be biased." How does this bias test work? In the introduction to the test, Schubert explains: "The first step in reducing a bias is noticing that it’s there. The test asks you a number of questions about your opinions and knowledge on various political issues, and uses these answers to give you a score of how politically biased you are in different areas.
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