Partisan Bias: A Mental Distortion That Leads Us To Partisanship
In the context of politics, a committed member of a political party is known as a “partisan”, “partisan” or “partisan”. In this sense, partisan bias or partisan bias is the tendency to prefer the proposals of some parties or political actors to the detriment of others, considering our affinity with the party more than the content of said proposals.
All of the above occurs through a process of identification that leads us to take certain positions, and in which different elements are involved that studies on partisan bias have allowed us to know. In this article we will see what this is about.
It is assumed that when we assume an inclination or position with respect to a party, it is because we have prioritized and even analyzed in depth its political proposals, regardless of the affinity that the party itself generates in us.
Partisan bias shows us that, in reality, the opposite phenomenon usually occurs: even if we do not realize it, we tend to be guided more by our identification with the party, and not so much by its political proposals, when we assume a certain position. Obviously this ends up being decisive when developing opinions and making decisions in political activity.
In fact, scientific research in this context is abundant and has shown how partisanship has an important influence on both individual and collective attitudes and behaviors.
On the other hand, studies on partisan bias have also observed how this bias It usually sneaks into the media and the information they transmit benefiting some parties to the detriment of others, especially during electoral campaign periods.
But how is partisan bias generated? Do some people show it and others don’t? Does identification with the party, and our political position, occur through a purely rational mechanism? Or, are they mediated by an affective and emotional dimension? Below we will see some proposals to answer these questions.
Identification and partisanship: how is this bias generated?
As we have said, studies on partisan or partisan bias have shown how people tend to sympathize with the proposals of the parties with which we most identify regardless of the content of the proposal itself.
This identification refers to the process through which we recognize in the values promoted by a party our own values, desires, interests, expectations, life stories, etc. That is, the general preferences of a voter are combined with the general positions of a party, which implies an affective orientation of the individual towards it.
Research on partisan bias suggests that this arises from attempts to defend a highly valued group identity. In other words, this bias is generated as a psychological mechanism to reduce the distress of disagreeing with a group to which we feel an important emotional attachment. The latter is what finally generates the motivation to follow the line or position of the party, and leave the content of your policy in the background.
As with other group identifications, this process is established from the earliest moments of our lives and from the significant changes that occur in our immediate environment.
Thus, we tend to approve a priori the policies of a party or candidate, even without the need to carry out an in-depth analysis of them or a comparison process with the policies of other candidates or parties.
In the same sense we tend to discard, also a priori, the proposals of the opposing parties. without having reviewed them in depth. All of this since it allows us to reduce the cognitive effort that would imply finding ourselves in opposition; It is preferable to opt for whatever position is adopted by the party we prefer.
A study on affective orientation
In a study on the physiological responses related to partisan bias, Michael Bang, Ann Giessing and Jesper Nielsen (2015) analyze the participation of the affective dimension in the process of identification with a political party in the Danish population. 27 men and 31 women between 19 and 35 years old participated. many of them affiliated with political parties of both the center-left and the center-right.
In a laboratory they measured the changes that occurred in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system (linked to emotional and affective activity) of the participants, when presented with the visual presentation of logos of different parties. They also used partisan signals such as advertising sponsors and specific policy proposals.
Subsequently, the participants were questioned to determine if they actually agreed with the proposals of the parties to which they were affiliated, or to which they showed affinity without necessarily being affiliated. In this they found that there was greater approval of political proposals when participants were affiliated.
On the other hand, when analyzing the reactions of the sympathetic nervous system to the presented stimuli, they found that partisan bias only manifested itself in people who exhibited a strong physiological reaction during exposure to advertising sponsors. From this it is concluded that there is a very important affective component in identification towards parties, which ultimately generates a partisan bias.
