Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
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Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#2wonder if there's a way to tease out what I believe versus what I think you want to hear.
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#3"The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual question"
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#4"The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual question"
This study fails to impress me as anyone with some intelligence would always pick "don't know" since it's a guaranteed payment.
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#5Interesting finding. One of the problems with voting is that there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. Therefore people vote for a candidate that makes them feel good, rather than a competent one. This is arguably the cause of many bad policies. Caplan discusses this issue in his book 'The Myth of the Rational Voter' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#6"The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual question"
This study fails to impress me as anyone with some intelligence would always pick "don't know" since it's a guaranteed payment.
They performed this with and without that payment.
"This paper reports results from two novel experiments designed to distinguish sincere from expressive partisan differences in responses to factual questions. In both experiments, all subjects were asked factual questions, but some were given financial incentives to answer correctly. ... In our second experiment, we therefore implement a treatment in which subjects were offered incentives both for correct responses and for admitting that they did not know the correct response."
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#7The small payments ranged between 17 cents and $1. But how the payment calculations were described, based on weirdly complicated raffle entry odds for gift certificates or with different questions randomly worth 25 cents or 50 cents or whatever with various probabilities.
Frankly, I doubt most participants understood the payments guidance about what amount correct answers would earn them.
This could imply just putting a paragraph of confusing words with dollar signs mixed in before asking questions might also diminish political partisan bias in responses.
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
This study fails to impress me as anyone with some intelligence would always pick "don't know" since it's a guaranteed payment.
They performed this with and without that payment. "This paper reports results from two novel experiments designed to distinguish sincere from expressive partisan differences in responses to factual questions. In both experiments, all subjects were asked factual questions, but some were given financial incentives to answer correctly. ... In our second experiment, we therefore implement a treatment in which subjects w…
But if there's no payout then there's no incentive to say don't know. Whereas if there is a payout then the optimal strategy is clearly "dont know", assuming equal payouts for correct and dont know. Why would you take the risk of being wrong?
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#9If someone asks me my opinion about something I'm much more likely to say what I know they want to hear if they offer to pay me to say that, and I'm less likely to debate with them instead.
If they aren't paying me, I'm more likely to say what I really think.
Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions
#10Interesting finding. One of the problems with voting is that there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. Therefore people vote for a candidate that makes them feel good, rather than a competent one. This is arguably the cause of many bad policies. Caplan discusses this issue in his book 'The Myth of th…
Counterpoint: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rati...
This paper argues that voting for social reasons ("this result will benefit society") is sensible even in large elections. The value depends on the percent turnout, but not on population size.