Cognitive Dissonance: Affecting Party Orientation and Selective Recall of Political Information

Cognitive dissonance theory posits that inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviors cause an uncomfortable arousal state, and people are motivated to reduce this discomfort by changing attitudes or behaviors to increase consistency. This principle applies to research on political affiliation. Due to dissonance processes, individuals focus less on political information that opposes their views and pay greater attention when it is congruent with their views. This study adds to this research by examining whether political orientation causes a similar pattern of selective attention bias during the recall stage. Participants (117) studied a political article on a social issue representing a viewpoint that was favorable to Democrats. Next, participants recalled as much information as possible by typing the information in a textbox. Using a sliding scale, they also rated how they felt about the article in terms of arousal and affect, and indicated whether the article was neutral, positive, or negative. Democrats were predicted to recall more positive information and more positive affect after reading the article than Republicans. Surprisingly, more Republicans, rather than Democrats, recalled more positive information about the article. Finally, those who scored more conservatively on the political slider also reported more positive affect toward the article. Although contrary to the study hypotheses, these results have implications for our current understanding of selective attention in a political context by showing the bias also occurs at the recall stage. It takes a special effort to be able to think outside the bubble. The purpose of this study is to find what it takes to pop the bubble and change the mindset of political engaged people. Keywords: cognitive dissonance, attentional bias, political orientation, selective recall