Summary
Highlights
A 2013 math test on over 1,100 American adults revealed a surprising truth: while strong math skills predicted correct answers for neutral questions, political identity significantly influenced answers to politically charged questions. Even top mathematicians were 45% more likely to get a question wrong if the correct answer challenged their political beliefs, demonstrating how politics can lead to illogical errors.
The phenomenon behind this irrationality is partisanship, defined as a strong bias towards a particular group or idea, encompassing political, ethnic, religious, and national identities. While group identification is a healthy part of life, it becomes problematic when group beliefs conflict with reality. Cognitive dissonance, the tension felt when holding conflicting thoughts, drives people to resolve this discomfort, often by maintaining group allegiance over truth, as illustrated by the example of defending a favorite sports team's foul.
In politics, partisan cognitive dissonance can lead individuals and groups to reject evidence inconsistent with their party's views, resulting in policies not grounded in truth. Partisan polarization has increased dramatically due to factors like geographical clustering of like-minded communities and reliance on echo chamber media and social platforms.
To resist this distortion, cognitive scientists suggest acknowledging personal biases and deliberately evaluating new information analytically. Within groups, fostering a culture of fact-checking and questioning assumptions is crucial. When attempting to persuade others, affirming their values and framing issues in their language can increase receptiveness, ultimately helping us make more evidence-based decisions about shared realities.