A new longitudinal study suggests that intimate partners mutually influence each other’s support for political parties over time. The research found that a shift in one person’s support for a party was predictive of a similar shift in their partner’s support the following year, a process that may contribute to political alignment within couples and broader societal polarization. The findings were published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin/em>.

Political preferences are often similar within families, particularly between parents and children. However, less is known about how political views might be shaped during adulthood, especially within the context of a long-term romantic relationship. Prior studies have shown that partners often hold similar political beliefs, but it has been difficult to determine if this is because people choose partners who already agree with them or if they gradually influence each other over the years.

The authors of the new study sought to examine if this similarity is a result of ongoing influence. They wanted to test whether a change in one partner’s political stance could predict a future change in the other’s. To do this, they used a large dataset from New Zealand, a country with a multi-party system. This setting allowed them to see if any influence was specific to one or two major parties or if it occurred across a wider ideological spectrum, including smaller parties focused on issues like environmentalism, indigenous rights, and libertarianism.

To conduct their investigation, the researchers analyzed data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a large-scale project that has tracked thousands of individuals over many years. Their analysis focused on 1,613 woman-man couples who participated in the study for up to 10 consecutive years. Participants annually rated their level of support for six different political parties on a scale from one (strongly oppose) to seven (strongly support).

The study employed a sophisticated statistical model designed for longitudinal data from couples. This technique allowed the researchers to separate two different aspects of a person’s political support. First, it identified each individual’s stable, long-term average level of support for a given party. Second, it isolated the small, year-to-year fluctuations or deviations from that personal average. This separation is important because it allows for a more precise test of influence over time.

The analysis then examined whether a fluctuation in one partner’s party support in a given year could predict a similar fluctuation in the other partner’s support in the subsequent year. This was done while accounting for the fact that couples already tend to have similar average levels of support.

The results showed a consistent pattern of mutual influence. For all six political parties examined, a temporary increase in one partner’s support for that party was associated with a subsequent increase in the other partner’s support one year later. This finding suggests that partners are not just politically similar from the start of their relationship but continue to shape one another’s specific party preferences over time.

This influence also appeared to be a two-way street. The researchers tested whether men had a stronger effect on women’s views or if the reverse was true. They found that the strength of influence was generally equal between partners. With only one exception, the effect of men on women’s party support was just as strong as the effect of women on men’s support.

The single exception involved the libertarian Association of Consumers and Taxpayers Party, where men’s changing support had a slightly stronger influence on women’s subsequent support than the other way around. For the other five parties, including the two largest and three other smaller parties, the influence was symmetrical. This challenges the idea that one partner, typically the man, is the primary driver of a couple’s political identity.

An additional analysis explored whether this dynamic of influence applied to a person’s general political orientation, which was measured on a scale from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. In this case, the pattern was different. While partners tended to be similar in their overall political orientation, changes in one partner’s self-rated orientation did not predict changes in the other’s over time. This suggests that the influence partners have on each other may be more about support for specific parties and their platforms than about shifting a person’s fundamental ideological identity.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations of their work. The study focused on established, long-term, cohabiting couples in New Zealand, so the findings may not apply to all types of relationships or to couples in other countries with different political systems. Because the couples were already in established relationships, the study also cannot entirely separate the effects of ongoing influence from the possibility that people initially select partners who are politically similar to them.

Future research could explore these dynamics in newer relationships to better understand the interplay between partner selection and later influence. Additional studies could also investigate the specific mechanisms of this influence, such as how political discussions, media consumption, or conflict avoidance might play a role in this process. Examining whether these shifts in expressed support translate to actual behaviors like voting is another important avenue for exploration.

The study, “The Interpersonal Transmission of Political Party Support in Intimate Relationships,” was authored by Sam Fluit, Nickola C. Overall, Danny Osborne, Matthew D. Hammond, and Chris G. Sibley.

A new study suggests that individuals who leave their religion tend to become more politically liberal, often adopting views similar to those who have never been religious. This research, published in the Journal of Personality, provides evidence that the lingering effects of a religious upbringing may not extend to a person’s overall political orientation. The findings indicate a potential boundary for a psychological phenomenon known as “religious residue.”

Researchers conducted this study to investigate a concept called religious residue. This is the idea that certain aspects of a person’s former religion, such as specific beliefs, behaviors, or moral attitudes, can persist even after they no longer identify with that faith. Previous work has shown that these lingering effects can be seen in areas like moral values and consumer habits, where formerly religious people, often called “religious dones,” continue to resemble currently religious individuals more than those who have never been religious.

The research team wanted to determine if this pattern of residue also applied to political orientation. Given the strong link between religiosity and political conservatism in many cultures, it was an open question what would happen to a person’s politics after leaving their faith. They considered three main possibilities. One was that religious residue would hold, meaning religious dones would remain relatively conservative.

Another possibility was that they would undergo a “religious departure,” shifting to a liberal orientation similar to the never-religious. A third option was “religious reactance,” where they might react against their past by becoming even more liberal than those who were never religious.

To explore these possibilities, the researchers analyzed data from eight different samples across three multi-part studies. The first part involved a series of six cross-sectional analyses, which provide a snapshot in time. These studies included a total of 7,089 adults from the United States, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong. Participants were asked to identify as currently religious, formerly religious, or never religious, and to rate their political orientation on a scale from conservative to liberal.

In five of these six samples, the results pointed toward a similar pattern. Individuals who had left their religion reported significantly more liberal political views than those who were currently religious. Their political orientation tended to align closely with that of individuals who had never been religious. When the researchers combined all six samples for a more powerful analysis, they found that religious dones were, on average, more politically liberal than both currently religious and never-religious individuals. This combined result offered some initial evidence for the religious reactance hypothesis.

To gain a clearer picture of how these changes unfold over time, the researchers next turned to longitudinal data, which tracks the same individuals over many years. The second study utilized data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, a project that followed a representative sample of 2,071 American adolescents into young adulthood. This allowed the researchers to compare the political attitudes of those who remained affiliated with a religion, those who left their religion at different points, and those who were never religious.

The findings from this longitudinal sample provided strong support for the religious departure hypothesis. Individuals who left their religion during their youth or young adulthood reported more liberal political attitudes than those who remained religious. However, their political views were not significantly different from the views of those who had never been religious. This study also failed to find evidence for “residual decay,” the idea that religious residue might fade slowly over time. Instead, the shift toward a more liberal orientation appeared to be a distinct change associated with leaving religion, regardless of how long ago the person had de-identified.

The third study aimed to build on these findings with another longitudinal dataset, the Family Foundations of Youth Development project. This study followed 1,857 adolescents and young adults and had the advantage of measuring both religious identification and political orientation at multiple time points. This design allowed the researchers to use advanced statistical models to examine the sequence of these changes. Specifically, they could test whether becoming more liberal preceded leaving religion, or if leaving religion preceded becoming more liberal.

The results of this final study confirmed the findings of the previous ones. Religious dones again reported more liberal political attitudes, similar to their never-religious peers. The more advanced analysis revealed that changes in religious identity tended to precede changes in political orientation. In other words, the data suggests that an individual’s departure from religion came first, and this was followed by a shift toward a more liberal political stance. The reverse relationship, where political orientation predicted a later change in religious identity, was not statistically significant in this sample.

The researchers acknowledge some limitations in their work. The studies relied on a single, broad question to measure political orientation, which may not capture the complexity of political beliefs on specific social or economic issues. While the longitudinal designs provide a strong basis for inference, the data is observational, and experimental methods would be needed to make definitive causal claims. The modest evidence for religious reactance was only present in the combined cross-sectional data and may have been influenced by the age of the participants or other sample-specific factors.

Future research could explore these dynamics using more detailed assessments of political ideology to see if religious residue appears in certain policy areas but not others. Examining the role of personality traits like dogmatism could also offer insight into why some individuals shift their political views so distinctly.

Despite these limitations, the collection of studies provides converging evidence that for many people, leaving religion is associated with a clear and significant move toward a more liberal political identity. This suggests that as secularization continues in many parts of the world, it may be accompanied by corresponding shifts in the political landscape.

The study, “Religious Dones Become More Politically Liberal After Leaving Religion,” was authored by Daryl R. Van Tongeren, Sam A. Hardy, Emily M. Taylor, and Phillip Schwadel.

Watching a powerful movie may do more than stir emotions. According to a study published in the journal Communication Research, emotionally moving films that explore political or moral issues may encourage viewers to think more deeply about those topics and even engage politically. The researchers found that German television theme nights combining fictional drama with related factual programs were associated with higher levels of information seeking, perceived knowledge, and consideration of political actions related to the issues portrayed.

There is a longstanding debate about whether entertainment harms or helps democracy. Some scholars worry that media such as movies and reality shows distract citizens from more serious political content. But recent research has begun to suggest that certain types of entertainment might actually contribute to political awareness and engagement.

“We were curious about effects of entertainment media on political interest and engagement. Can watching a movie and walking in the shoes of people affected by a political issue raise viewers’ awareness about the issue and motivate them to take action to address the issue?” explained study author Anne Bartsch, a professor at Leipzig University.

“From about a decade of experimental research, we know that moving and thought-provoking media experiences can stimulate empathy and prosocial behavior, including political engagement. In this study, we used television theme nights as an opportunity to replicate these findings ‘in the wild.’ Theme nights are a popular media format in Germany that combines entertainment and information programs about a political issue and attracts a large enough viewership to conduct representative survey research. This opportunity to study political effects of naturally occurring media use was quite unique.”

The researchers conducted three studies around two German television theme nights. The first theme night focused on the arms trade, while the second dealt with physician-assisted suicide. Each theme night included a full-length fictional film followed by an informational program. Across the three studies, more than 2,800 people took part through telephone and online surveys.

In the first study, researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 905 German adults by phone after the arms trade theme night. Participants were asked whether they watched the movie, the documentary, or both. They were also asked about their emotional reactions, whether they had thought deeply about the issue, and what actions they had taken afterward.

People who had seen the movie reported feeling more emotionally moved and were more likely to report having reflected on the issue. These viewers also reported greater interest in seeking more information, higher levels of both perceived and factual knowledge, and more willingness to engage in political actions related to arms trade, such as signing petitions or considering the issue when voting.

Statistical analysis indicated that the emotional experience of feeling moved led to deeper reflection, which then predicted greater knowledge and political engagement. However, there was no significant difference in how often viewers talked about the issue with others, compared to non-viewers. Surprisingly, emotional reactions did not appear to encourage discussion on social media, and may have slightly reduced it.

In the second study, the researchers repeated the survey online with a different sample of 877 participants following the same theme night. The results were largely consistent. Again, those who watched the movie felt more moved, thought more about the issue, and were more engaged. In this study, feeling moved was also linked to more frequent interpersonal discussion.

The third study examined the theme night about physician-assisted suicide. Over 1,000 people took part in the online survey. As with the earlier studies, viewers who watched the movie reported being emotionally affected and more reflective. These experiences were linked to higher interest in the topic, greater perceived knowledge, and a higher likelihood of discussing the issue or participating politically. Watching the movie also predicted stronger interest in the subsequent political talk show.

Across all three studies, the researchers found that emotional and reflective experiences were key pathways leading from entertainment to political engagement. People who felt moved by the movies were more likely to think about the issues they portrayed. These thoughts were, in turn, connected to learning more about the issue, talking with others, and taking or considering political action.

The findings suggest that serious entertainment can function as a catalyst, helping viewers process complex social issues and motivating them to become more engaged citizens.

“We found that moving and thought-provoking entertainment can have politically mobilizing effects, including issue interest, political participation, information seeking, learning, and discussing the issue with others,” Bartsch told PsyPost. “This is interesting because entertainment often gets a bad rap, as superficial, escapist pastime. Our findings suggest that it depends on the type of entertainment and the thoughts and feelings it provokes. Some forms of entertainment, it seems, can make a valuable complementary contribution to political discourse, in particular for audiences that rarely consume traditional news.”

Although the findings were consistent across different samples and topics, the authors note some limitations. Most importantly, the studies were correlational, meaning they cannot establish that the movies directly caused people to seek information or take political action. It is possible that people who are already interested in politics are more likely to watch such films and respond emotionally to them.

The researchers also caution that while theme nights seem to offer an effective combination of entertainment and information, these findings might not easily transfer to other types of media or digital platforms. Watching a movie on television with millions of others at the same time may create a shared cultural moment that is less common in today’s fragmented media landscape.

“Our findings cannot be generalized to all forms of entertainment, of course,” Bartsch noted. “Many entertainment formats are apolitical ‘feel-good’ content – which is needed for mood management as well. What is more concerning is that entertainment can also be instrumentalized to spread misinformation, hate and discrimination.”

Future studies could use experimental methods to better isolate cause and effect, and could also explore how similar effects might occur with streaming platforms or social media. Researchers might also investigate how hedonic, or lighter, forms of entertainment interact with political content, and how emotional reactions unfold over time after watching a movie.

“Our study underscores the value of ‘old school’ media formats like television theme nights that can attract large audiences and provide input for shared media experiences and discussions,” Bartsch said. “With the digital transformation of media, however, it is important to explore how entertainment changes in the digital age. For example, we are currently studying parasocial opinion leadership on social media and AI generated content.”

The study, “Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences of TV Theme Nights and Their Relationships With Political Information Processing and Engagement,” was authored by Frank M. Schneider, Anne Bartsch, Larissa Leonhard, and Anea Meinert.

A new pair of large-scale studies finds that while political conservatives and ideological extremists are slightly less likely to update their beliefs when presented with new evidence, these effects are very small. The research, published in the journal Political Psychology, suggests that broad, sweeping claims about a strong connection between a person’s political views and their cognitive rigidity are likely not justified.

The study was conducted as an “adversarial collaboration,” a unique scientific approach where researchers with opposing viewpoints team up to design a study they all agree is a fair test of their competing ideas. This method is intended to reduce the biases that can arise when scientists design studies that might favor their own pre-existing theories. The goal was to find a definitive answer to a long-debated question: Is a rigid way of thinking associated with a particular political ideology?

“There is a rich and longstanding history of examining the relations between political ideology and rigidity,” said corresponding author Shauan Bowes, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. “Much of this research has been rife with debate, and it is a vast and complex literature. An adversarial collaboration brings together disagreeing scholars to examine a research question, affording the opportunity for more accurate and nuanced research. Here, the adversaries were hoping to provide additional clarity on the nature of the relations between political ideology and rigidity, testing three different primary hypotheses.”

For decades, psychologists have explored the underpinnings of political beliefs. One prominent idea has been the “rigidity-of-the-right” hypothesis. This perspective suggests that conservative ideology is rooted in a less flexible thinking style and a greater need for certainty. According to this view, these traits make conservatives less open to changing their minds.

A second perspective offers a different explanation, known as the symmetry model. Proponents of this view argue that psychological motivations to fit in with a group and avoid social punishment can lead to rigid thinking in people of any political persuasion. They propose that there is no inherent reason to believe one side of the political spectrum would be more or less flexible than the other; any differences would depend on the specific topic being discussed.

A third idea is the “rigidity-of-extremes” hypothesis. This theory posits that inflexibility is not about being left or right, but about being at the ideological fringes. People with extreme political views, whether on the far left or the far right, may be more rigid in their thinking than political moderates. Extreme ideologies often provide simple, clear-cut answers to complex societal problems, which can foster a high degree of certainty and a reluctance to consider alternative viewpoints.

A major challenge in this area of research has been defining and measuring “rigidity.” The term has been used in many different ways, and many popular measures have been criticized for containing questions that are already biased toward a certain political ideology.

To overcome this, the collaborating researchers first reviewed dozens of ways rigidity has been measured. After a thorough process of elimination, they unanimously agreed on one operationalization they all considered valid and unbiased: evidence-based belief updating. This simply means measuring how much a person changes their belief about a statement after being shown evidence that supports it. A person who shows less belief change is considered more rigid.

Before launching their main studies, the team conducted a pretest with over 2,000 participants. Their aim was to find pairs of political statements that were ideologically balanced. They generated statements that made arguments friendly to both liberal and conservative viewpoints on the same topic. For example, one statement suggested that people who are liberal on social issues score higher on intelligence tests, while its counterpart suggested people who are fiscally conservative score higher. By analyzing how people with different ideologies rated these statements, the researchers selected pairs that showed no overall bias, ensuring the main studies would be a fair test.

In the first study, nearly 2,500 American participants were asked to rate their agreement with several political statements. After giving an initial rating, they were shown a short piece of information from a credible source, like a university, that supported the statement. For example, a statement might read, “The U.S. economy performs better under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents,” followed by evidence from a research institution supporting that claim. Participants then rated the same statement a second time. The researchers measured the change between the first and second ratings to calculate a belief updating score.

The results of this first study showed a weak but statistically significant relationship. People who identified as socially or generally conservative updated their beliefs slightly less than liberals did. The analysis also found that general political extremism was associated with less belief updating. However, the size of these effects was very small. For instance, a one standard deviation increase in conservatism or extremism resulted in a change of less than 1.5 points on a 200-point scale of belief updating.

“I was surprised by how the results were consistently quite small,” Bowes told PsyPost. “Previous studies may have conflated ideology and rigidity measures, which can artificially inflate effect sizes. Because the adversaries intentionally designed an ideology-neutral measure of rigidity, the results were small. And, from my perspective, they were smaller than I would have initially presumed.”

The second study aimed to replicate and build upon the first. This time, the research team recruited more than 3,700 U.S. participants, making a special effort to include more people from the extreme ends of the political spectrum. They also made the evidence presented to participants more engaging, designing it to look like a blog post from a research institution. The fundamental procedure remained the same: participants rated a statement before and after seeing evidence for it.

The findings from the second study mirrored those of the first. Once again, general and social conservatism were weakly associated with less belief updating. In this larger sample with more extremists, all measures of extremism were also significantly linked to less belief updating. People on the far right tended to be slightly more rigid than people on the far left. Despite these consistent patterns, the effects remained tiny and, from a practical standpoint, negligible.

By combining the data from both studies, the researchers created a large dataset of over 6,000 participants. This combined analysis confirmed the earlier findings. Conservatism and extremism were both associated with slightly less willingness to change one’s mind in the face of evidence. But the size of these relationships was consistently very small, suggesting that a person’s political ideology is a very poor predictor of how much they will update their beliefs in this kind of task.

The authors, representing all sides of the original debate, came to a shared conclusion. Centrists and moderates showed the most belief updating, or the least rigidity. When comparing groups, people on the political right, especially the far right, were slightly more rigid. However, the weakness and inconsistency of these effects across different measures of ideology mean that the practical importance of this connection is questionable.

“The relations between political ideology and rigidity, which in this context was belief rigidity (i.e., less willing to update one’s views after being presented with evidence), are generally small, which calls into question the practical importance of ideological differences in rigidity in this context,” Bowes explained. “There was semi-consistent support for the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis (conservatives are more rigid than liberals) and rigidity-of-extremes (political extremes are more extreme than political moderates) hypothesis.”

“That said, the adversaries acknowledge that because the results are quite small and only semi-consistent, one could reasonably interpret the results as lending support to symmetry perspectives (the left and right are equally rigid but about different topics). ”

The team suggests that instead of asking the broad question of who is more rigid, researchers should focus on identifying the specific contexts and issues that might cause rigidity to appear more strongly in certain groups.

The study did have some limitations. The research was conducted with American participants at a specific point in time, and the findings might not apply to other countries or different political eras. It also focused on only one type of rigidity, belief updating, and did not examine other forms, such as personality traits associated with inflexibility. Future studies could explore these relationships over time or in different cultural contexts to see if the patterns hold.

“We only studied belief rigidity, which is one form of rigidity,” Bowes noted. “We do not want to make sweeping claims about rigidity writ large and encourage others to examine whether our results do or do not held when examining other manifestations of rigidity.”

“I think it would be immensely beneficial to examine additional forms of rigidity in relation to political ideology and consider boundary conditions. That is, there are likely contexts where the relationship is much stronger, and we should be focusing on that question rather than ‘overall, who is more rigid in general?'”

The study, “An adversarial collaboration on the rigidity-of-the-right, symmetry thesis, or rigidity-of-extremes: The answer depends on the question,” was authored by Shauna M. Bowes, Cory J. Clark, Lucian Gideon Conway III, Thomas Costello, Danny Osborne, Philip E. Tetlock, and Jan-Willem van Prooijen.

A new scientific paper suggests that a common, unconscious mental shortcut may partly explain why many people believe in election fraud. The research indicates that the order in which votes are reported can bias perceptions, making a legitimate late comeback by a candidate seem suspicious. This work was published in the journal Psychological Science.

The research was motivated by the false allegations of fraud that followed the 2020 United States presidential election. Previous work by political scientists and psychologists has identified several factors that contribute to these beliefs. For example, messages from political leaders can influence the views of their supporters. Another explanation is the “winner effect,” which suggests people are more likely to see an election as illegitimate if their preferred party loses.

Similarly, research on motivated reasoning highlights how a person’s desire to maintain a positive view of their political party can lead them to question an unfavorable outcome. Personality differences may also play a part, as some individuals are more predisposed to viewing events as the result of a conspiracy.

Against this backdrop, a team of researchers led by André Vaz of Ruhr University Bochum proposed that a more fundamental cognitive mechanism could also be at play. They investigated whether the sequential reporting of partial vote counts, a standard practice in news media, could inadvertently sow distrust. They theorized that beliefs in fraud might be fueled by a phenomenon known as the cumulative redundancy bias.

This bias describes how our impressions are shaped by the progression of a competition. When we repeatedly see one competitor in the lead, it creates a strong mental impression of their dominance. This has been observed in various contexts, including judgments of sports teams and stock market performance. The core idea is that the repeated observation of a competitor being ahead leaves a lasting impression on observers that is not entirely erased even when the final result shows they have lost. The human mind seems to struggle with discounting information once it has been processed.

The order in which information is presented can be arbitrary, like the order in which votes are counted, yet it can leave a lasting, skewed perception of the competitors. This was evident in the 2020 election in states like Georgia, where early-counted ballots often favored Donald Trump. This occurred in part because his supporters were more likely to vote in person, and those votes were often tallied first.

In contrast, ballots counted later tended to favor Joe Biden, as his voters made greater use of mail-in voting, and many counties counted those mail-in ballots last. Additionally, populous urban counties, which tend to be more Democratic, were often slower to report their results than more rural counties. This created a dramatic late shift in the lead, which the study’s authors suggest is a prime scenario for the cumulative redundancy bias to take effect.

To test this hypothesis, the scientists conducted a series of seven studies with participants from the United States and the United Kingdom. The first study tested whether the cumulative redundancy bias would appear in a simulated election. Participants watched the vote count for a school representative election between two fictional candidates, “Peter” and “Robert.” In both scenarios, Peter won by the same final margin. The only difference was the order of the count. In an “early-lead” condition, Peter took the lead from the beginning. In a “late-lead” condition, he trailed Robert until the very last ballots were counted.

The results showed that participants rated Peter more favorably and predicted he would be more successful in the future when he had an early lead. When Peter won with a late lead, participants actually rated the loser, Robert, as the better candidate.

The second study used the same setup but tested for perceptions of fraud. After the simulated vote count, participants were told that rumors of a rigged election had emerged. When the winner had secured a late lead, participants found it significantly more likely that the vote count had been manipulated and that the wrong candidate had won compared to when the winner had an early lead.

To make the simulation more realistic, a third study presented the vote counts as percentages, similar to how news outlets report them, instead of raw vote totals. The researchers found the same results. Observing a candidate come from behind to win late in the count made participants more suspicious of fraud.

The fourth study brought the experiment even closer to reality. The researchers used the actual vote-count progression from the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, which showed a candidate trailing for most of the count before winning at the end. To avoid partisan bias, participants were told they were observing a recent election in an unnamed Eastern European country. One group saw the actual vote progression, where the eventual winner took the lead late. The other group saw the same data but in a reversed order, creating a scenario where the winner led from the start. Once again, participants who saw the candidate come from behind were more likely to believe the election was manipulated.

Building on this, the fifth study investigated if these fraud suspicions could arise even before the election was decided. Participants watched a vote count that stopped just before completion, at a point when one candidate had just overtaken the longtime leader. Participants were then asked how likely it was that the vote was being manipulated in favor of either candidate. In the scenario mirroring the 2020 Georgia count, people found it more likely that the election was being manipulated in favor of the candidate who just took the lead. In the reversed scenario, they found it more likely that the election was being manipulated in favor of the candidate who was losing their early lead.

During the actual 2020 election, officials and news commentators provided explanations for the shifting vote counts, such as differences in when urban and rural counties reported their results. The sixth study tested if such explanations could reduce the bias. All participants saw the late-lead scenario, but one group was given an explanation for why the lead changed. The results showed that while the explanation did reduce the belief in fraud, it did not eliminate it. People were still significantly more suspicious of a late comeback than would be expected.

The final study addressed partisanship directly. American participants who identified as either Democrats or Republicans were shown a vote count explicitly labeled as being from the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. As expected, political affiliation had a strong effect, with Republicans being more likely to suspect fraud in favor of Biden and Democrats being more likely to suspect fraud in favor of Trump.

However, the cumulative redundancy bias still had a clear impact. For both Republicans and Democrats, seeing Biden take a late lead increased suspicions of a pro-Biden manipulation compared to seeing a scenario where he led from the start. This suggests the cognitive bias operates independently of, and in addition to, partisan motivations.

The researchers note that their findings are based on participants recruited from an online platform and may not represent all populations. The studies also focus on the perception of vote counting, not on other potential election issues like voter registration or suppression. However, the consistent results across seven different experiments provide strong evidence that the way election results are communicated can unintentionally create distrust.

The authors suggest that the sequential reporting of vote counts could be revised to mitigate these effects. While simply waiting until all votes are counted could be one solution, they acknowledge that a lack of information might also breed suspicion. Better public education about vote counting procedures or the use of more advanced forecasting models that provide context beyond live totals could be alternative ways to present results without fueling false perceptions of fraud.

The study, “‘Stop the Count!’—How Reporting Partial Election Results Fuels Beliefs in Election Fraud,” was authored by André Vaz, Moritz Ingendahl, André Mata, and Hans Alves.