Renovated attention in political psychology and public opinion studies has been dedicated to whether citizens evaluate information in a balanced or in a biased way when they make political decisions. Evidence for processes of ‘motivated reasoning’ and ‘biased information processing’ suggests that reality often contradicts the ideals of deliberative democracy, especially when citizens’ opinions polarize instead of converging.
By applying an experimental design within the ‘real-world’ context of the Scottish independence referendum, this study aims to provide further empirical insights on how citizens make political decisions. We use an innovative between-subjects design which allows to distinguish between two different possible mechanisms of opinion polarization – i.e. selective exposure and biased evaluation of information – in addition to two possible mechanisms of ‘debiasing’ opinion formation. The proposed experiment aims to contribute not only to research in public opinion and voting behaviour, but also to normative questions in participatory and deliberative theory.
