Football, politics and bias

In his wonderful book, Predictably Irrational, Daniel Ariely uses a football story to illustrate how our preconceived biases influence how we see the world. Here is his story, which I have modified to better suit an Arkansas audience.

Suppose the college football game of the week is Arkansas vs. Tennessee. Further, suppose that you are a Razorback fan, who – god forbid – ends up watching the game with some friends from Tennessee. Imagine that the Razorbacks have the ball, and the quarterback throws the ball to the deep corner of the end zone. Leaping into the air, the receiver makes a spectacular catch, but it is not clear to the announcers if he landed inbounds or out-of-bounds. Here I will make a prediction. The Arkansas fans will think that the play should result in a touchdown. The Tennessee fans will watch the same play and be sure that the receiver landed out-of-bounds.

How can Arkansas fans and Tennessee fans all see the same play but disagree about what occurred? The answer is — no one is truly impartial. The Razorback fan wants to see his team succeed, which colors his interpretation of what he sees. The Tennessee fan similarly wants to see a certain outcome occur, which will influence how his brain processes what he sees on the TV screen. In short, people often see what they want to see. For this reason, I usually do not believe an account of a sporting event that I hear from a fan. I am much more likely to believe the account of a game given by a person who does not care which team wins.

Ariely’s football story provides some insight into how the political environment will probably unfold over the next four years. The Democrats, much like the Tennessee fans, have a worldview and a rooting interest that will make them see an event as evidence that President Trump is making bad decisions, or is not up to the job. Republicans, at least those who are Trump supporters, will see the same event and be certain that it provides evidence that Trump is doing a great job.

I expect that the political discourse over the next four years will be dominated by those who have a rooting interest that is either for or against Trump. Their analysis will be colored by their rooting interest. Citizens typically must wait for time to pass and for historians to take up an issue before they can get unbiased and fair analysis. For instance, the historians do not have a rooting interest for or against President Andrew Jackson, simply because so much time has passed since his presidency, so the historians do a good job giving a fair and accurate analysis of events of that time.

I understand that most people will be impatient and not want to wait for historians to take up the years of the Trump Presidency. They will want to make sense of today’s events now. To do this, their best course of action is to hear arguments on both sides of the issue, and realize that each side sees the same events differently.

Joe McGarrity is a professor of economics at the University of Central Arkansas. Contact him by email at joem@uca.edu.