Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias
Are people's perceptions of the newsworthiness of events biased by a tendency to rate as more important any news story that seems likely to lead others to share their own political attitudes? To assess this, we created six pairs of hypothetical news stories, each describing an event that seemed...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2018-01-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.172239 |
| _version_ | 1818174832317038592 |
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| author | Harold Pashler Gail Heriot |
| author_facet | Harold Pashler Gail Heriot |
| author_sort | Harold Pashler |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Are people's perceptions of the newsworthiness of events biased by a tendency to rate as more important any news story that seems likely to lead others to share their own political attitudes? To assess this, we created six pairs of hypothetical news stories, each describing an event that seemed likely to encourage people to adopt attitudes on the opposite side of a particular controversial issue (e.g. affirmative action and gay marriage). In total, 569 subjects were asked to evaluate the importance of these stories ‘to the readership of a general-circulation newspaper’, disregarding how interesting they happened to find the event. Subjects later indicated their own personal attitudes to the underlying political issues. Predicted crossover interactions were confirmed for all six issues. All the interactions took the form of subjects rating stories offering ‘ammunition’ for their own side of the controversial issue as possessing greater intrinsic news importance. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T19:50:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8001219e5a45432aa27a5eb500313f21 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T19:50:40Z |
| publishDate | 2018-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-8001219e5a45432aa27a5eb500313f212022-12-22T00:52:46ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032018-01-015810.1098/rsos.172239172239Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness biasHarold PashlerGail HeriotAre people's perceptions of the newsworthiness of events biased by a tendency to rate as more important any news story that seems likely to lead others to share their own political attitudes? To assess this, we created six pairs of hypothetical news stories, each describing an event that seemed likely to encourage people to adopt attitudes on the opposite side of a particular controversial issue (e.g. affirmative action and gay marriage). In total, 569 subjects were asked to evaluate the importance of these stories ‘to the readership of a general-circulation newspaper’, disregarding how interesting they happened to find the event. Subjects later indicated their own personal attitudes to the underlying political issues. Predicted crossover interactions were confirmed for all six issues. All the interactions took the form of subjects rating stories offering ‘ammunition’ for their own side of the controversial issue as possessing greater intrinsic news importance.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.172239judgementmotivated reasoningpolitical psychology |
| spellingShingle | Harold Pashler Gail Heriot Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias Royal Society Open Science judgement motivated reasoning political psychology |
| title | Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias |
| title_full | Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias |
| title_fullStr | Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias |
| title_full_unstemmed | Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias |
| title_short | Perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias |
| title_sort | perceptions of newsworthiness are contaminated by a political usefulness bias |
| topic | judgement motivated reasoning political psychology |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.172239 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT haroldpashler perceptionsofnewsworthinessarecontaminatedbyapoliticalusefulnessbias AT gailheriot perceptionsofnewsworthinessarecontaminatedbyapoliticalusefulnessbias |