Motivated Reasoning Experiment
A motivated reasoning experiment tests whether people process political information to reach conclusions they are directionally motivated to hold rather than the most accurate ones. Building on Kunda's (1990) theory and crystallized by Taber and Lodge (2006), these designs expose partisans to attitude-congruent and incongruent arguments and measure biased assimilation, disconfirmation bias, attitude polarization, and selective exposure.
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Sources
- Taber, C. S., & Lodge, M. (2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 755-769. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x ↗
- Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Motivated Political Reasoning Experiment. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/political-psychology/motivated-reasoning-experiment
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