情绪、信念与政策观点
Emotions, Beliefs, and Policy Views
Journal of the European Economic Association · 2026 · [{"name": "Elena Manzoni", "affiliation": ["University of Bergamo"]}, {"name": "Elie Murard", "affiliation": ["University of Trento"]}, {"name": "Simone Quercia", "affiliation": ["University of Verona"]}, {"name": "Sara Tonini", "affiliation": ["Free University of Bozen-Bolzano", "Ospedale di Bolzano"]}]
中文摘要
摘要 情绪如何影响政策观点？情绪又如何影响人们处理事实信息的方式？我们利用意大利的一项调查实验来考察这些问题：该实验将 12,000 名参与者随机置于以下处理之一——(i) 关于移民犯罪的耸人听闻的新闻，(ii) 关于移民的统计信息，或 (iii) 二者的组合。第一，我们发现高度情绪化的新闻报道显著增加了对反移民政策的需求，而情绪化程度较低的新闻影响较小或没有影响。与情绪发挥因果作用的判断一致，当我们提供统计信息、使不同新闻处理下的后验信念保持不变时，这一差异效应依然存在。第二，我们发现提供信息总体上有助于纠正事实信念，尽管在参与者被情绪触发时，学习会受到轻微干扰。第三，我们表明，情绪强烈地影响着信念更新是否会转化为政策观点的变化。当事实信息单独呈现时，它会降低反移民态度；而当其与情绪化新闻同时出现时，情绪反应压倒了信息的作用，使参与者形成与仅接触情绪化新闻时同样强烈的反移民观点。一旦负面情绪被触发，拥有更准确的事实知识便不再对政策观点的形成产生影响。
Abstract
Abstract How do emotions affect policy views? How do they influence the way people process factual information? We address these questions using a survey experiment in Italy, which randomly exposes 12,000 participants to (i) sensational news about immigrant crimes, (ii) statistical information about immigration, or (iii) the combination of both. First, we find that highly emotional news stories significantly increase the demand for anti-immigration policies, while less emotional news has a smaller or no impact. Consistent with a causal role of emotions, this differential effect persists when we provide statistical information that holds posterior beliefs constant across the different news treatments. Second, we find that providing information generally helps correct factual beliefs, even though learning is slightly disrupted when participants are emotionally triggered. Third, we show that emotions strongly influence whether belief updating leads to changes in policy views. When presented alone, factual information reduces anti-immigration attitudes. When paired with emotional news, the emotional reaction overrides the effect of information, leading participants to adopt anti-immigration views as strongly as when exposed to emotional news alone. Once negative emotions are triggered, having more accurate factual knowledge no longer matters for forming policy views.