Motivated Cognition in a Model of Voting

This paper develops a theory in which heterogeneity in political preferences produces a partisan disagreement about objective facts. A political decision involving both idiosyncratic preferences and scientific knowledge is considered. Voters form motivated beliefs in order to improve their subjective anticipation of the future political outcome, which is determined by majority voting. This creates a two-way interaction between beliefs and voting decisions. The paper provides conditions on preferences under which equilibrium beliefs are monotone along the political spectrum, as voters tend to deny the scientific arguments advocating the political orientations that run counter to their interests. Collective denial is the strongest in societies where contingent policy is the least likely to be implemented. A greater heterogeneity of preferences increases partisan disagreement but has no effect on the equilibrium policy