Researchers argue that politicians systematically discount opinions from constituents with whom they disagree—a phenomenon termed 'disagreement discounting.' This behavior is a key contributor to ideological incongruence.
Survey Experiments on Politicians' Biases:
- Two survey experiments featuring state and local politicians demonstrate this bias.
- These experiments showed that public officials assume constituents with opposing views are less informed about the issue, leading them to discount those opinions.
- This finding holds true for both established partisan issues (like party platform differences) and nonpartisan ones.
- Addressing Alternative Explanations:
- The results cannot be attributed to politicians favoring copartisans' opinions or focusing on likely voters.
The Role of Policy Position Explanation:
- A third survey experiment reveals that the activity central to representative governance—explicitly taking and explaining policy positions—exacerbates this bias among elected officials.
- This suggests that representing constituents may inadvertently foster a tendency to disregard their own political opponents' views.
Implications for Political Representation:
- These findings highlight potential challenges in democratic representation, showing how the very act of being an official can lead to biased information processing.
