Do people with different political orientations have different bases—evidence or emotion—for their political opinions?
Liberals, moderates, and conservatives all reported basing their political opinions on scientific evidence and reason, though no group agreed with the statement very strongly.
Liberals however, reported greater agreement with the statement compared to the other two groups.
Conservatives reported disagreement that they base their political opinions on their emotions, or the emotions of others.
Though conservatives disagreed more than the other two groups, their level of disagreement was not very strong.
Moderates and Liberals were not statistically different from one another in their answers to this question, and on average, did not clearly agree or disagree that their politics are based on emotion.
What do we make of this? Do liberals have a greater trust in science and
evidence? Are conservatives trying to reinforce a self-conception that, unlike their liberal counterparts, they are not as “bleeding heart,” in their orientation to politics? (see Farwell and Weiner, 2000).
