This experiment uses a variation of a known cognitive reflection test (CRT) to test whether politically motivated reasoning is a manifestation of heuristic or deliberative thinking. The CRT is a four-question battery asking cognitive ability-like questions (e.g. ‘If you’re running a race and you pass the person in second place, what place are you in?’ Answer: ‘first’). The CRT questions are not experimentally manipulated.
The political questions ask about a petition to require a verified identification to open a social media account. The experiment leverages people’s identification with ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ following the Brexit vote. There are three versions of the requirement of the verified identification using these. One version says the “petition was popular in areas that voted Remain in the Brexit referendum”, and the second version substitutes ‘Remain’ with ‘Leave’. The third version is the control, which does not contain any such phrase to prime respondents.
The allocations were done at the household level, such that all members of a household were allocated the same treatment, with 1/3 of households allocated to each group. The allocations were stratified by sample origin, wave 16 incentive treatment allocation, wave 16 mode allocation, and government office region. The allocation variable is ff_polreasoningw16 in file p_hhsamp_ip:
1 = Control
2 = Remain version
3 = Leave version
The variables affected by this experiment are in file p_indresp_ip:
scacrt2acor, scacrt2b, scacrt2ccor, scacrt2d, petition
