In the social media era, consumers of political information receive a variety of signals about the popularity of political candidates. Cues include how often information was “shared” or “liked” as well as the comments people leave. The question is whether people can use these cues to make accurate judgments about candidate viability. Using a stylized primary election, subjects evaluated two politicians to determine which one would earn more votes from other study participants. We manipulated the number and valence of social cues indicating which candidate was more popular. Results indicate that subjects' ability to accurately interpret cues is conditional on their affect for the candidate in question; even though we offered monetary incentives for making the correct choice, subjects were still less likely to accurately read negative cues about their favored politician. These findings indicate a motivated dismissal of social cues incongruent with the subject’s own evaluation of the politician.
