
How Is the Economy Doing? It May Depend on Your Party, and $1 - JoshTriplett
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/upshot/how-is-the-economy-doing-politics-may-decide-your-answer.html
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JoshTriplett
Note: I've submitted this article not because of the specific topic of the
economy or politics, but rather because of its implications on reasoning.

Key quote from the article: "When survey respondents were offered a small cash
reward — a dollar or two — for producing a correct answer about the
unemployment rate and other economic conditions, they were more likely to be
accurate and less likely to produce an answer that fit their partisan biases."

This suggests that people have a more accurate underlying understanding/model,
but that they ignore it in favor of their professed beliefs.
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/)

I say this having previously exhibited such behavior myself (both on this
particular topic and on others). I know that I've stopped doing so on the
topics for which I've become aware of doing it, but I wouldn't find it
particularly surprising if I still did this on other things and didn't realize
it.

