Todd Rogers, Julia Minson, & Ryan Buell, Harvard Kennedy School

Date: 

Friday, September 22, 2017, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

CGIS S050

Abstract:

Talk I: The Belief in a Favorable Future
Todd Rogers (HKS) shows that people believe that future others’ preferences and beliefs will change to align with their own.  People holding a view (e.g., support President Trump) are more likely than those holding the opposing view (e.g., oppose President Trump) to believe that future others will share their view.  Six studies show this belief in a favorable future (BFF) for political views, scientific beliefs, and entertainment and product preferences.  BFF can affect (but is distinct from) beliefs about favorable future policy changes and a field experiment involving political donations (N=660,542) demonstrates that believing in a favorable future can influence people’s behavior today.  

Talk II: Selective exposure is supported by faulty affective forecasts
Julia Minson (HKS) shows that the phenomenon of selective exposure can be partially explained by an error in affective forecasting. Clinton voters exaggerated the negative affective consequences of watching the 2017 Inaugural address (Study 1), and of reading commentary by Trump voters (Study 2). Both liberals and conservatives exaggerated their negative affect in reaction to speeches by prominent politicians (Study 3). These effects are driven by people’s misjudgment of their agreement with the content of politicians’ speeches (Studies 1 & 3); and their tendency to initially attribute disagreement to the flawed reasoning of other voters (Study 2). Correcting the affective forecasting error makes individuals more willing to consume content from “the other side of the aisle” (Study 4).

Talk III: Surfacing the Submerged State
Ryan Buell (HBS) shows that revealing the often-hidden work that government performs enhances both perceptions of and engagement with government. For example, residents of Boston who interacted with a website that visualized both service requests (e.g., potholes), and the efforts by the government to address them, became more trusting and supportive of government. Other residents, who reported potholes through a mobile app and saw photographic evidence that their requests had been addressed, engaged with the government more, by reporting more public service issues over the ensuing 11 months than residents who did not see such evidence.