Partisanship bias

Marginalrevolution.com reports on a post at fivethirtyeight.com about partisanship bias, the tendency for those with a strong partisan identification to see reality in a way that fits their ideological preconceptions.

A good example comes from the research of Larry Bartels. He analyzed a 1988 survey that asked “Would you say that compared to 1980, inflation has gotten better, stayed about the same, or gotten worse?” Amazingly, over half of the self-identified strong Democrats in the survey said that inflation had gotten worse and only 8% thought it had gotten much better, even though the actual inflation rate dropped from 13% to 4% during Reagan’s eight years in office. Republicans were similarly biased about the Clinton-era economy: in 1996, a majority of Republicans thought that the budget deficit had increased.

In a totally different thread, hotair takes a look at the widespread but false "plastic turkey" story that circulated widely about George Bush, and is still believed by many on the far left. However, in turn hotair may have started its own version of a story that follows a script that they want the story to follow.