RANDOMIZATION TESTS OF COPULA SYMMETRY

New nonparametric tests of copula exchangeability and radial symmetry are proposed. The novel aspect of the tests is a resampling procedure that exploits group invariance conditions associated with the relevant symmetry hypothesis. They may be viewed as feasible versions of randomization tests of symmetry, the latter being inapplicable due to the unobservability of marginals. Our tests are simple to compute, control size asymptotically, consistently detect arbitrary forms of asymmetry, and do not require the specification of a tuning parameter. Simulations indicate excellent small sample properties compared with existing procedures involving the multiplier bootstrap.

At Least Bias Is Bipartisan: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives

Both liberals and conservatives accuse their political opponents of partisan bias, but is there empirical evidence that one side of the political aisle is indeed more biased than the other? To address this question, we meta-analyzed the results of 51 experimental studies, involving over 18,000 participants, that examined one form of partisan bias— the tendency to evaluate otherwise identical information more favorably when it supports one’s political beliefs or allegiances than when it challenges those beliefs or allegiances. Two hypotheses based on previous literature were tested: an asymmetry hypothesis (predicting greater partisan bias in conservatives than in liberals) and a symmetry hypothesis (predicting equal levels of partisan bias in liberals and conservatives). Mean overall partisan bias was robust (r = .245), and there was strong support for the symmetry hypothesis: Liberals (r = .235) and conservatives (r = .255) showed no difference in mean levels of bias across studies. Moderator analyses reveal this pattern to be consistent across a number of different methodological variations and political topics. Implications of the current findings for the ongoing ideological symmetry debate and the role of partisan bias in scientific discourse and political conflict are discussed.

The effect of semantic relatedness on associative asymmetry in memory

We provide new evidence concerning two opposing views of episodic associations: The independent associations hypothesis (IAH) posits that associations are unidirectional and separately modifiable links (A→B and A←B); the associative symmetry hypothesis (ASH), to the contrary, considers the association to be a holistic conjunction of A and B representations. While existing literature focuses on tests that compare the equality and correlation of forward and backward associations and favors ASH over IAH, we provide the first direct evidence of IAH by showing that forward and backward associations are separately modifiable for semantically related pairs. In two experiments, participants studied 30 semantically unrelated and 30 semantically related pairs intermixed in a single list, and then performed a series of up to eight cued-recall test cycles. All pairs were tested in each cycle, and the testing direction (A-? or B-?) alternated between cycles. Consistent with prior research, unrelated pairs exhibited associative symmetry – accuracy and response times improved gradually on each test, suggesting that testing in both directions strengthened the same association. In contrast, semantically related pairs exhibited a stair-like pattern, where performance did not change from odd to even tests when the test direction changed; it only improved between tests of the same direction. We conclude that episodic associations can have either a holistic representation (ASH) or separate directional representations (IAH), depending on the semantic relatedness of their constituent items.

At Least Bias Is Bipartisan: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives

Both liberals and conservatives accuse their political opponents of partisan bias, but is there empirical evidence that one side of the political aisle is indeed more biased than the other? To address this question, we meta-analyzed the results of 51 experimental studies, involving over 18,000 participants, that examined one form of partisan bias—the tendency to evaluate otherwise identical information more favorably when it supports one’s political beliefs or allegiances than when it challenges those beliefs or allegiances. Two hypotheses based on previous literature were tested: an asymmetry hypothesis (predicting greater partisan bias in conservatives than in liberals) and a symmetry hypothesis (predicting equal levels of partisan bias in liberals and conservatives). Mean overall partisan bias was robust ( r = .245), and there was strong support for the symmetry hypothesis: Liberals ( r = .235) and conservatives ( r = .255) showed no difference in mean levels of bias across studies. Moderator analyses reveal this pattern to be consistent across a number of different methodological variations and political topics. Implications of the current findings for the ongoing ideological symmetry debate and the role of partisan bias in scientific discourse and political conflict are discussed.

Social and Economic Ideologies Differentially Predict Prejudice across the Political Spectrum, but Social Issues are Most Divisive

Liberals and conservatives both express prejudice toward ideologically dissimilar others (Brandt et al., 2014). Previous work on ideological prejudice did not take advantage of evidence showing that ideology is multi-dimensional, with social and economic ideologies representing related but separable belief systems. In five studies (total N = 4912), we test three competing hypotheses of a multi-dimensional account of ideological prejudice. The dimension-specific symmetry hypothesis predicts that social and economic ideologies differentially predict prejudice against targets who are perceived to vary on the social and economic political dimensions, respectively. The social primacy hypothesis predicts that such ideological worldview conflict is experienced more strongly along the social than economic dimension. The social-specific asymmetry hypothesis predicts that social conservatives will be more prejudiced than social liberals, with no specific hypotheses for the economic dimension. Using multiple target groups, multiple prejudice measures (e.g., global evaluations, behavior), and multiple social and economic ideology measures (self-placement, issue positions), we found relatively consistent support for the dimension-specific symmetry and social primacy hypotheses, and no support for the social-specific asymmetry hypothesis. These results suggest that worldview conflict and negative intergroup attitudes and behaviors are dimension-specific, but that the social dimension appears to inspire more political conflict than the economic dimension.