Partisanship, Political Support, and Information Processing Among President Rodrigo Duterte’s Supporters and Non-Supporters

What is it about?

This study investigates whether partisanship influences the cognitive processing of statements made by President Rodrigo Duterte. It adopts a pre-test/post-test design and involves 254 volunteer college students from Metro Cebu and Metro Manila Philippines. Findings suggest that partisanship significantly influenced the cognitive processing of statements attributed to President Duterte. Political support was significantly and positively associated with belief. Supporters were more likely to express belief in statements attributed to him, even when given information that the statement is false. Their political support did not significantly diminish after being informed that he made false statements. Non-supporters were less likely to express belief and more likely to change their belief in statements when these are attributed to him and shown information the statements are false. The literature suggests “motivated reasoning” or “expressive responding” as possible explanations but there is not enough data in this study to establish this. The implication is that in a highly polarized environment like the Philippines, fact-checking has a limited impact on changing the minds or diminishing the political support of strongly partisan people.

Featured Image