Resumo O debate recente sobre identificação partidária e comportamento eleitoral no Brasil vem apontando para a crescente importância do posicionamento dos eleitores com respeito aos principais partidos presidenciais – PT e PSDB – na escolha dos candidatos à presidência. Neste artigo, procura-se contribuir para a literatura colocando em questionamento diagnósticos recentes com respeito à polarização do sistema partidário presidencial. De acordo com a hipótese da polarização, a competição eleitoral entre PT e PSDB levou a uma crescente divisão do eleitorado em dois blocos claramente diferenciados e polarizados. Argumentamos que esta hipótese se apoia em bases teóricas e empíricas frágeis. Não obstante a crescente importância dos sentimentos partidários na determinação do comportamento dos eleitores no pleito presidencial, os resultados das análises descritivas e modelos estatísticos multivariados com base nos surveys do Estudo Eleitoral Brasileiro (Eseb) realizados nos anos de 2002, 2006, 2010 e 2014 demonstram que não há evidências de que tal movimento estaria associado a um aumento da polarização partidária de massa. Pelo contrário, observamos que as diferenças ideológicas e de opinião entre petistas e tucanos são de pequena monta e, além disso, encontramos evidências de uma crescente convergência ideológica entre os vários segmentos do eleitorado ao longo do tempo.

ResumoA opinião pública sobre as ações afirmativas não é consensual, especialmente entre os brancos. Em um desenho experimental de pesquisa, as cotas raciais são estudadas na Universidade de Brasília (UnB) e na Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). A técnica utilizada é conhecida como experimento de lista, a qual consiste essencialmente de um experimento embutido em um survey convencional. O delineamento experimental garante a privacidade necessária para os respondentes se sentirem livres para darem respostas honestas, evitando o efeito chamado de desejabilidade social. Os resultados mostram que a teoria do autointeresse não tem efeitos sobre as atitudes raciais, e o efeito de desejabilidade social é muito forte entre os estudantes brancos. Palavras-chave: Experimentos; Experimento de lista; Opinião Pública; Metodologia de Pesquisa. ResumenLa opinión pública sobre las acciones afirmativas no es consensual, especialmente entre los blancos. Aquí, en un diseño experimental, las cuotas raciales son estudiadas en la Universidad de Brasilia (UnB) y en la Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). La técnica empleada es conocida como experimento de lista que es esencialmente un experimento dentro de un estudio convencional. El diseño experimental garantiza la privacidad de los encuestados que se sienten libres para dar respuestas honestas, evitando el efecto de deseabilidad social. Los resultados muestran que la teoría de la auto-interés no tiene efectos sobre las actitudes raciales, y el efecto de deseabilidad social es muy fuerte entre los estudiantes blancos. Palabras clave: Experimentos; Experimento de lista; Opinión Pública; Metodología de la Investigación. AbstractPublic opinion on affirmative actions is not consensual, especially among whites. Here in an experimental design the racial quotas are studied at the University of Brasilia (UnB) and University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). The technique employed is known as the list-experiment, which consists essentially of an experiment embedded in a conventional survey. The experimental design ensures privacy for respondents to feel free to give honest answers, avoiding the social desirability effect. The results show that the self-interest theory has no effects on the racial attitudes, and the social desirability effect is very strong among the white students.Keywords: Experiments; List-experiment; Public Opinion; Research Methodology.

Recently in Brazil, public policies have begun to be implemented to reduce discrimination and promote the inclusion of excluded social groups based on a specific individual characteristic: race. However, there is little public consensus about such policies, especially among whites. In this work, I look at the racial attitudes towards affirmative action among white college students. I make use of new research methods for the empirical study of socially sensitive issues and ask whether these attitudes stem from prejudice, conflicts between social groups or individual political predispositions. Furthermore, I ask what is the relationship between political knowledge and such racial attitudes. I use the list experiment method because of its potential to offset the under-representation of opinions and attitudes. This approach allows respondents to be indirectly questioned, ensuring greater sincerity in their answers and, hence, providing more accurate portrayal of attitudes. This study shows that white respondents' answers on affirmative action policies are strongly affected by social desirability. Only 6% of white respondents agreed that it is important to have a quota policy for blacks at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). Individuals with greater political knowledge tend to express greater support for affirmative action and hold more coherent racial attitudes Results also reveal that negative racial attitudes and political predispositions are both determinants of the white student's attitudes towards affirmative action policies. Keywords: Affirmative action; racial attitudes; public opinion; political knowledge; experiment. he implementation of affirmative action policies in Brazil to promote the inclusion of social groups excluded specifically based on race are a recent development. These policies vary from the creation of quotas that promote access of blacks to higher education to universalist efforts to reduce the impoverished Brazilian populations composed mostly of blacks (TELLES and BAILEY, 2002) 1 . However, the perception of these policies by white individuals is not well understood.In this article, I present a study of racial attitudes among white college students at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and their opposition to affirmative action. Attitudes against affirmative action encompass a variety of arguments and values, which include some of the following notions: affirmative action consists of an unfair preferential policy; the policy is reverse discrimination; and the policy stigmatizes the people they want to help (BOBO, 1999;SEARS et al., 1997).The purpose of this article is to advance our understanding of white opposition to affirmative action in Brazilian federal public universities. I draw on the literatures of the three main schools of thought explaining opposition to racial policies in the UnitedStates, all of which propose competing theories. However, these theories are often discussed in the context of race being a discrete, or even binary, entity. How can these t...

Decades of research on motivated reasoning have found that citizens routinely place a higher priority on defending their preexisting beliefs than on updating them in response to new and conflicting experiences. Scholars have employed a variety of strategies in their efforts to eliminate, or at least mitigate, the reactive and polarizing effects of motivated reasoning. In this chapter, we provide a conceptual framework for navigating this body of literature that categorizes these efforts based upon how their interventions moderate the three central dimensions of information processing: priors, motivations, and considerations. This review of an extensive and growing literature finds that purely cognitive approaches to political communication are insufficient for overcoming subjects’ powerful drive to rationalize their own perspective. Accepting, understanding, and embracing the role of affect in shaping information processing offers promise for redirecting attention and reshaping intentions for the purpose of overcoming the limitations of situated perspectives.

Resumo O artigo analisa como os brasileiros se posicionam em relação ao Programa Bolsa Família (PBF) e seus beneficiários. Os dados são de uma pesquisa nacional de opinião pública encomendada pela Secretaria de Comunicação Social da Presidência da República (Secom-PR). Resultados de um modelo logístico multinomial sobre as chances de apoio ao PBF mostraram que elas crescem com a avaliação positiva do governo federal, o nível de informação sobre o programa e o contato com beneficiários, mas caem com o aumento da escolaridade, da renda familiar e do nível de individualismo dos entrevistados. Ambivalências aparecem quando as análises se voltam para as opiniões sobre a gestão do Bolsa Família e seus beneficiários em particular. Regressões via mínimos quadrados ordinários (MQO), estimadas para avaliar as opiniões sobre os impactos positivos do PBF, a suposta falta de controle do programa e os beneficiários, mostraram que possuir mais conhecimento sobre o programa não diminui as visões negativas sobre os beneficiários ou as críticas em relação ao seu controle. De modo surpreendente, essas visões críticas estão presentes mesmo entre grupos de pessoas que teriam maiores chances de receber os recursos do Bolsa Família, como os menos escolarizados, não brancos e moradores do Nordeste.

All citizens, including the most sophisticated and attentive, possess a powerful drive to defend their opinions, attitudes, and worldviews in the face of challenges. This bias manifests as an active effort to rationalize what they want to believe rather than accepting incongruent viewpoints. This propensity to dismiss or counterargue perspectives we do not like is evident across political identities and raises serious obstacles to successfully shifting others’ attitudes. This article presents an integrated understanding of these information processing phenomena under the John Q. Public model and explains how prior beliefs, confirmation bias, and disconfirmation bias interact to produce persistence in evaluations. It then goes on to explain how network analysis and experimental designs can be leveraged to illuminate the black box of communication effects and deepen our understanding of when persuasion is successful. Mapping out the cognitive relationships between semantic concepts and connecting these to a raw, affective charge provides a clearer view of citizens’ understanding of issues and how their thoughts and feelings shift in response to targeted political messaging.

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People are motivated to maintain consistency between importantly held identities, preferences, and judgments. In political contexts, motivated reasoning can help explain a wide range of political phenomena, including extremism, polarization, and misperceptions. However, recent findings in psychology have challenged this account. These perspectives emphasize the role of cognitive sophistication (e.g., analytical reasoning, numerical literacy) in political attitudes, but differ in terms of whether it is expected to attenuate or exacerbate politically motivated reasoning and belief in conspiracy theories. Yet prior investigations have not examined the relative and independent effects of both political and cognitive sophistication. Using data from two samples, including one sampled to approximate representativeness in the U.S., we demonstrate that both types of sophistication have independent and (at times) countervailing effects on belief in COVID‐19 conspiracy theories and other political attitudes. Our results are critical for theories of cognitive sophistication, political cognition, and attitudes, and the psychology of conspiracy theories.