Partisan bias: a mental distortion that leads us to partisanship

The partisan bias makes us sympathize with a group regardless of its proposals.

In the context of politics, a committed member of a political party is known as "partisan", "partisan" or "partisan". In this sense, partisan bias or partisan bias is the tendency to prefer the proposals of some political parties or actors to the detriment of others, considering more our affinity with the party than the content of such proposals.

All of the above occurs as a result of a process of identification that leads us to take certain positions, and in which different elements are involved. different elements are involved, which the studies on partisan bias have allowed us to learn about. In this article we will see what this is all about.

What is partisan or partisan bias?

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.

The partisan bias shows us that, in reality, the opposite phenomenon tends to occur: 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. Evidently, this This obviously ends up being decisive at the moment of developing opinions and making decisions in political in political activity.

In fact, scientific research in this context is abundant and has shown how partisanship has an important influence on individual and collective attitudes and behaviors.

On the other hand, studies on partisan bias have also observed how this bias tends to creep into the media and the information they transmit. media and the information they transmit, benefiting some parties to the detriment of others, especially during election campaign periods.This is especially true during election campaign periods.

But how is it that partisan bias is generated? do some people manifest it and others do not? does identification with the party, and our political position, occur by a purely rational mechanism? or are they mediated by an affective and emotional dimension? We will see below some proposals to answer these questions.

Identification and partisanship: how is this bias generated?

As we have said, studies on the partisan or partisan bias have shown how people tend to sympathize with the proposals of the parties with which we most identify ourselves.regardless of the content of the proposal itself.

Such identification refers to the process by which we recognize in the values promoted by a party our own values, desires, interests, expectations, life histories, etcetera. In other words, the general preferences of a voter are combined with the general positions of a party, which implies an affective orientation of the individual towards the party.

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 a strong emotional attachment. The latter is what ultimately generates the motivation to follow the party line or position, and leave the actual content of its policies in the background..

As occurs with other group identifications, this process is established from the earliest moments of our lives and from the significant changes that occur in our close 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 these policies or a process of comparison 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 this because it allows us to reduce the cognitive effort that would be involved in finding ourselves in opposition; it is preferable to opt for any position adopted by the party we prefer.

A study on affective orientation

In a study on physiological responses related to partisan bias, Michael Bang, Ann Giessing, and Jesper Nielsen (2015) analyze the involvement of the affective dimension in the process of identification with a political party in Danish population. Twenty-seven men and 31 women between 19 and 35 years old participated, many of them affiliated with both center-left and center-right political parties..

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 logos of different parties. They also used partisan cues such as advertising sponsors and specific political proposals.

Subsequently, the participants were questioned to determine whether they effectively 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 a greater approval of the political proposals when the participants were affiliated to the parties with which they were affiliated..

On the other hand, when analyzing the reactions of the sympathetic nervous system to the stimuli presented, they found that partisan bias was only manifested 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 partisan bias.

Bibliographical references:

• Bang, M., Giessing, A. and Nielsen, J. (2015). Physiological responses and partisan bias: beyond self-reported measures of party identification, 10(5): DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0126922.
• Bullock, J., Gerber, A., Hill, S., & Huber, G. (2013). Partisan bias in factual beliefs about politics. NBER: Massachusetts.
• Echeverría, M. (2017). Partisan bias in news media. A methodological critique and proposal. Comunicación y Sociedad, 30: 217-238.