The Complexity of Policy Preferences: Examining Self-interest, Group-Interest, and Race Consciousness Across Race and Political Ideology

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-135
Author(s):  
William J. Scarborough ◽  
Allyson L. Holbrook
Keyword(s):  
Interest Group ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Self Interest

Bias and Belief

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-66
Author(s):  
Adrian Bardon
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Psychological Condition ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Subject

This chapter introduces key psychological concepts pertinent to denial, such as cognitive dissonance, motivated reasoning, and confirmation bias. It also addresses the relation between denial and ideology. It explains different social psychology approaches to understanding the phenomena of denial and ideological denialism. Ideological denialism is a unique psychological condition wherein the subject is motivated to embrace a certain conclusion about issues of public relevance for reasons relating to self-interest, group-interest, culture, personality, and/or identity. A discovery of great importance is that the tendency to ideological denial is neither a consequence of being uninformed nor a consequence of one’s lacking political sophistication.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 214-234
Author(s):  
Jon Elster
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Economic Variables ◽  
The Public ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ancien Régime

This chapter emphasizes the incompleteness of knowledge on key economic variables, which is in part due to the reluctance of individuals, from all social classes, to comply with requests for information. It notes how individuals and institutions had an incentive to misreport, exaggerate, or understate their income and property. At a different level, statements by royal officials, venal magistrates, and elected deputies can rarely be taken at face value. The chapter analyzes the universal tendency of speakers or writers to disguise self-interest or group interest as the public interest. It also argues that by the end of the ancien régime, public opinion was considered a poor substitute for publicity as it is often based on rumors rather than on facts in the public domain.

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (S1) ◽  
pp. S85-S108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungmin Rho ◽  
Michael Tomz
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Distributional Cues ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
Opposing Effects ◽  
Personal Interests

AbstractThe dominant approach to the study of international political economy assumes that the policy preferences of individuals and groups reflect economic self-interest. Recent research has called this assumption into question by suggesting that voters do not have economically self-interested preferences about trade policy. We investigate one potential explanation for this puzzling finding: economic ignorance. We show that most voters do not understand the economic consequences of protectionism. We then use experiments to study how voters would respond if they had more information about how trade barriers affect the distribution of income. We find that distributional cues generate two opposing effects: they make people more likely to express self-serving policy preferences, but they also make people more sensitive to the interests of others. In our study both reactions were evident, but selfish responses outweighed altruistic ones. Thus, if people knew more about the distributional effects of trade, the correlation between personal interests and policy preferences would tighten. By showing how the explanatory power of economic self-interest depends on beliefs about causality, this research provides a foundation for more realistic, behaviorally informed theories of international political economy.

scholarly journals Attitudes of Turkish and Moroccan Belgians toward Redistribution and Government Responsibility: The Role of Perceived Discrimination, Generation, and Religious Involvement

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-446
Author(s):  
Jolien Galle ◽  
Koen Abts ◽  
Marc Swyngedouw ◽  
Bart Meuleman
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Religious Involvement ◽  
Government Responsibility ◽  
Individual Discrimination ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Welfare Attitudes

This article contributes to the debate about migration’s impact on welfare state support by investigating the welfare opinions of migrants and their descendants. It examines whether experiences of group and individual discrimination explain the welfare attitudes of this group over and beyond classical predictors of self-interest and political ideology. Using survey data from Belgian citizens of Turkish and Moroccan descent, we show that stronger support for redistribution is associated with higher levels of perceived group discrimination, religious involvement, and belonging to the second generation. Preferences of government responsibility, however, are strongly determined by labor market position and left-right ideology.

scholarly journals Lay Americans’ views of why scientists disagree with each other

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 824-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Branden B. Johnson ◽  
Nathan F. Dieckmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Problem Complexity ◽  
Class Membership ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Scientific Positivism

A survey experiment assessed response to five explanations of scientific disputes: problem complexity, self-interest, values, competence, and process choices (e.g. theories and methods). A US lay sample ( n = 453) did not distinguish interests from values, nor competence from process, as explanations of disputes. Process/competence was rated most likely and interests/values least; all, on average, were deemed likely to explain scientific disputes. Latent class analysis revealed distinct subgroups varying in their explanation preferences, with a more complex latent class structure for participants who had heard of scientific disputes in the past. Scientific positivism and judgments of science’s credibility were the strongest predictors of latent class membership, controlling for scientific reasoning, political ideology, confidence in choice, scenario, education, gender, age, and ethnicity. The lack of distinction observed overall between different explanations, as well as within classes, raises challenges for further research on explanations of scientific disputes people find credible and why.

scholarly journals Optimal H1N1 vaccination strategies based on self-interest versus group interest

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. S4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunha Shim ◽  
Lauren Meyers ◽  
Alison P Galvani
Keyword(s):  
Versus Group ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Vaccination Strategies ◽  
Self Interest

scholarly journals TEMPORAL CHANGES IN THE EVALUATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES: DOES EVALUATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES REFLECT ATTITUDINAL IDEOLOGIES?

1970 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boban Petrović ◽  
Janko Međedović
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Three Samples ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Sources Of Authority ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Over Time

Previous research has shown that since the beginning of the 1990s, differentiation in the ideological orientations of political parties in Serbia has been increased. Comparing three samples, we explored the temporal stability of relations between evaluations of Serbian political parties (DSS, DS, SRS, SPS, SNS, and LDP) and lexically derived ideological dimensions: Traditional and Religious Sources of Authority, Unmitigated Self-Interest, Communal Rationalism, and Subjective Spirituality. We hypothesize that: 1) political parties should be divided into conservative and socio-liberal parties, and this structure should become stable over time; 2) the evaluation of political parties should consistently reflect their political ideology orientation : conservative parties should be related to an indicator of conservative ideology, Traditional Religiosity, while socio-liberal parties should be related to a humanistic ideological orientation, Communal Rationalism. Data was collected in three time-points: 2010 (N = 102), 2014/15 (N = 358) and 2016 (N = 117) from university students in Serbia. In all three studies principal component analyses of evaluations of political parties showed that two components were extracted and interpreted as evaluations of the National-Conservative Parties and Socio-Liberal Parties (in 2010 and 2014), i.e. Democratic parties (in 2016). However, while the structure of evaluations of the National-Conservative Parties remained stable, the congruence of evaluations of the Socio-Liberal Parties decreased over time. Additionally, the results of regression analyses showed that evaluations of the National-Conservative Parties were rooted in Traditional and Religious Sources of Authority and Unmitigated Self-interest, but the percentage of explained variance decreased over time. The evaluations of the Socio-Liberal Parties had much weaker relations with ideological orientations throughout all three time-points. The findings suggested that there was some kind of ‘’ideological crisis’’ in Serbia, primarily regarding the Socio-Liberal Parties and their supporters.

scholarly journals Emergent Prosocial Behavior During Dynamic Human Group Formation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Badman ◽  
Masahiko Haruno ◽  
Rei Akaishi
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Experimental Session ◽  
Cooperative Groups ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Tit For Tat

For scientists, policy makers, and the general population, there is increasing interest in how humans form cooperative groups. However, how group-oriented behavior emerges during the dynamic process of group formation is still unknown. We hypothesize that humans will exhibit emergent prosocial behavior as their immediate group size increases. Using a network-embedded-dyad prisoner dilemma task, with periodic opportunities to retain or remove group members, we find subjects consistently follow a well-performing reciprocal base policy (tit-for-tat-like) across the experimental session. However, subjects’ strategies also became more forgiving and less exploitative as group size increased, with a default preference shift to cooperation. Thus, human cooperation may emerge from a desire to create and maintain larger and more cooperative groups, and multiscale strategy that considers both self-interest and group-interest.

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