Member-only story
The flipping point: when partisans change their minds
Extreme partisanship is the unconditional, unshakeable support of a person, group, party or cause. But is there really nothing that can make partisans change their minds?
The status quo bias is often treated as maladaptive, but it is in fact a mostly helpful adaptation, that prevents us continually wasting precious cognitive capacity reconsidering every aspect of our life. That doesn’t mean we never stick too long with something that we should have dropped much earlier — whether it’s a mediocre movie, an unrewarding job or a doomed romantic relationship. This happens typically when we make a choice based on a relatively narrow set of considerations, or on a single, overpowering characteristic: the principal actor, the salary, or the initial chemistry with romantic partner. Sometimes, such choices seem beyond rational consideration: we hang on to them no matter what, however detrimental to us. Isn’t that odd?
A peculiar example is that of partisanship — the unquestioned allegiance to a person or a political party, or to an ideology or cause. Two seemingly disparate events in the past week provide intriguing illustrations. One is the victory in the Canadian parliamentary elections of the Liberal party despite, less…
