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Inequality and information among conservatives and liberals

As a follow up to Lee’s post on Napier and Jost, this graph, from Larry Bartels’ Unequal Democracy, is pretty striking.

Graph of inequality by political information

It shows how different levels of political information affect conservatives’ and liberals’ beliefs over whether income inequality between rich people and poor people has increased. The facts are unambiguous - economic inequality between rich and poor has increased very substantially. Yet, as Bartels describes it, increased political awareness (as measured by correct answers to the usual kinds of questions about which party had more members in the House, which party was more conservative etc) has different effects on conservatives and liberals. In Bartels’ words (p.155):

At low levels of political information, the figure shows that conservatives and liberals were about equally likely to recognize that income differences had increased over the past 20 years. However, the perceptions of better-informed conservatives and liberals diverged significantly. Among liberals, recognition of increasing income inequality rose markedy with general political awareness, to 86% for people of average political awareness … and a near-unanimous 96% at the highest information level. However, the proportion of extreme conservatives who were willing to admit that economic inequality had increased actually decreased with political information, from 80% among those who were generally least informed about politics to 70% for people of average political awareness to a little less than 60% among those at the top of the distribution of political information.

As Bartels goes on to note (p.157)

Rather than contributing to accurate apprehension of [a seemingly straightforward objective fact] by conservative and liberal observers, political awareness seems mostly to have taught people how the political elites who share their ideological commitments would like them to see the world. In particular, what is most significant in figure 5.2 is the effect of political information among conservatives. Rather than being more likely to recognize the reality of growing inequality, those conservatives who were most politically aware were most likely to deny that income differences had increased. In this instance, political awareness did more to facilitate ideological consistency than it did to promote an accurate perception of real social conditions.

Update: Thanks to Andrew in comments for linking to this post describing a similar phenomenon among Democrats.

Posted by Henry on July 8, 2008 10:34 AM |

Comments

Yes. See here for another example.

Also, Larry has an earlier paper where it’s the Democrats who get things wrong; see here.

Posted by: Andrew [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 8, 2008 11:49 AM

Andrew,

I don’t think the issue is about people getting things wrong, so much as it is about an inverse relationship between information and getting-things-right. The example you provide through the link isn’t really on point here, as it refers to data that assesses the factual beliefs of “strong Democrats” (and “strong Republicans” who also seem to have gotten the question wrong), rather than “high information” or highly educated Democrats (or Republicans). I think it is much less surprising that strong partisans have a more slanted view of facts than weak partisans, than that high information voters have a less accurate view of reality than low or average information voters .

Posted by: Rich C | July 9, 2008 02:34 PM

Larry’s piece “Homer gets a tax cut” illustrates a similar phenomenon regarding information levels about the substance of Bush’s tax cuts.

Posted by: Ed | July 9, 2008 04:31 PM

Schiller qua Talbot: “Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.”

Of course he also wrote:

Extreme stupidity and extreme intelligence have a certain affinity in only seeking the real and being completely insensible to mere appearance. The former is only drawn forth by the immediate presence of an object in the senses, and the second is reduced to a quiescent state only by referring conceptions to the facts of experience.

In short, stupidity cannot rise above reality, nor the intelligence descend below truth. Thus, in as far as the want of reality and attachment to the real are only the consequence of a want and a defect, indifference to the real and an interest taken in appearances are a real enlargement of humanity and a decisive step towards culture.

In the first place it is the proof of an exterior liberty, for as long as necessity commands and want solicits, the fancy is strictly chained down to the real; it is only when want is satisfied that it developes without hindrance. But it is also the proof of an internal liberty, because it reveals to us a force which, independent of an external substratum, sets itself in motion, and has sufficient energy to remove from itself the solicitations of nature.

The reality of things is effected by things, the appearance of things is the work of man, and a soul that takes pleasure in appearance does not take pleasure in what it receives but in what it makes.

S’alright, then. Viva le Republican Middlebrow, the crucible of western civilization.

Posted by: gnarlytrombone | July 9, 2008 05:13 PM

Presumably, the “better informed” conservatives are getting their info from Fox, NRO, townhall, etc. Need I say more?

Posted by: GWill | July 9, 2008 05:20 PM

Rich,

The example I link to compares views about climate change among people of high and low education. It’s very similar to Larry’s example, only using education instead of information level.

Posted by: Andrew [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 9, 2008 09:33 PM