Search
 New @ Now
Products
 FnTs in Business  FnTs in Technology
For Authors
 Review Updates
 Authors Advantages
 Download Style Files
 Submit an article
 

Economic Behavior and the Partisan Perceptual Screen



Author(s): Mary C. McGrath

Source:
    Journal:Quarterly Journal of Political Science
    ISSN Print:1554-0626,  ISSN Online:1554-0634
    Publisher:Now Publishers
    Volume 11 Number 4,
Pages: 21 (363-383)
DOI: 10.1561/100.00015100
Keywords: Political economy;Political psychology;Political parties;Political science

Abstract:

Partisans report different perceptions from the same set of facts. According to the perceptual screen hypothesis, this difference arises because partisans perceive different realities. An alternative hypothesis is that partisans take even fact-based questions as an opportunity to voice support for their team. In 2009, Gerber and Huber conducted the first behavioral test of the perceptual screen hypothesis outside of the lab. I re-analyze Gerber and Huber’s original data and collect new data from two additional U.S. elections. Gerber and Huber’s finding of a relationship between partisanship and economic behavior does not hold when observations from a single state-year (Texas in 1996) are excluded from their analysis. Out-of-sample replication based on the two U.S. presidential elections since the original study similarly shows no evidence of an effect. Given these results, the balance of evidence tips toward the conclusion that economic perceptions are not filtered through partisanship.