The Effects of Heuristics over Time and their

Impact on Polarization*

Guilherme A. Russo, FGV CEPESP

Jairo T. P. Pimentel Jr., FGV CEPESP George Avelino, FGV EAESP

* Corresponding author: guilherme.russo@fgv.br. Rua Itapeva, 286 - 10o andar. São Paulo/SP - CEP:
01332-000

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 The effects of heuristics in political behavior have been well documented. Voters
respond to messages associated with party labels (Arceneaux 2008; Cohen 2003; Zaller
1992) and partisan media (DellaVigna and Kaplan 2013; Druckman and Parkin 2005; Kinder
and Iyengar 1989; Gerber, Dean Karlan, and Bergan 2009), although the magnitude of the
impact tends to be conditioned by political awareness (Bartels 1996; Kuklinski et al. 2001;
Lupia 1994; Schaffner and Streb 2002) and predisposing attitudes (Kam 2005; Lau and
Redlawsk 2001; Levendusky 2013; Mondak 1993; Zaller 1992). However, the typical study
of heuristics occurs at one point in time, which means the estimated effect may be limited
to the circumstance of that moment (Chong and Druckman 2007; Druckman and Lupia
2016). For instance, the impact of a message about economic policy associated with the
president during the honeymoon period may be different from the same message during
the middle of the term, or when the public attention is largely focused on another issue
like public health during a pandemic. We know little about how the effect of a political cue
vary across time. Does the political context condition how voters respond to a heuristic?
How do changes in predisposing attitudes affect the impact of a heuristic?
These questions are of obvious importance for studies of political communication,
but also have important implications for the study of polarization. The extent to which
political cues, particularly those who originate from high-level political figures, can affect
public opinion can limit or exacerbate mass polarization. The formation of most political
preferences is a result of interactions between individuals and their environment. And if
the messages from political actors have a limited effect on people’s preferences, or at least
limited to a certain portion of the population or context, their impact may be limited. But
on the other hand, if the effect is large across circumstances, political messages have the
potential to increasingly polarize the electorate.
To answer these questions, we conduct the same survey experiment 7 times over the
course of 16 months in which a part of respondents are told that Brazilian President Jair
Bolsonaro is in favor of privatizating a public-owned oil company Petrobrás, while those

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in the control group were not told. Using president Bolsonaro and the privatization of
the public company present a unique opportunity to test the impact of the same heuristic
over time because the issue of privatization has been on the public debate for decades,
and Bolsonaro has been consistently ambiguous about where he stands on privatization
through his tenure in office and is not affiliated to a political party, which reduces the
probability that respondents would infer his position (Barber and Pope 2019).

Heuristics and polarization

Voters have limited time and attention to dedicate to politics. Naturally, they use
informational shortcuts to know learn about issues and where they stand. While these
informational shortcuts may be various forms of stimuli from the natural world, the more
effective messages tend to originate from the media and political elites. In fact, political
actors have dedicate strong efforts to try to influence people’s preferences. But the extent
to which messages have an impact on the attitude formation may depend on a series of
individual and contextual conditions.
First, not all voters are equally likely to receive a piece of information, to process and
store it, and in the end take it into account when forming or updating their attitudes (???;
Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Petty and Cacioppo 1996; Zaller 1992). Second, the impact of
heuristics may vary across contexts. The value of a cue depends on the extent to which
it carries meaningful information, and is not eclipsed by other information available at
the moment. For instance, the value of a partisan heuristic is conditional on the behavior
of politicians and parties in power (Fortunato and Stevenson 2013, 2016). Similarly, the
number and salience of other information in the environment may influence the extent to
which cues become more or less informative. Existing literature suggests that voters are
more likely to use heuristics when it is “ecologically rational” (Gigerenzer and Gassmaier
2001, 2002), that is, when they are more informative and accurate (Lau and Redlawsk 2001;

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Huckfeldt 2001), and when the collection of policy information is more costly (Boudreau
and MacKenzie 2014; Healy and Lenz 2014; Druckman 2015; Lupia 1994; Nicholson 2011).
In addition to the implications for the study of political communication, these potential
limitations to the effects of cues may be important for polarization and democracy. Sem-
inal studies indicate that polarization tends to have deletrious effects on the stability of
democracy (Almond and Verba 1963; Downs 1957; Huntington 1968; Linz and Stepan 1978;
Sartori 1976). In turn, a number of recent works have found that levels of polarization
and/or partisan sorting have increased over time (Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro 2020;
Fiorina and Abrams 2008; Levendusky 2009; Mason 2015), and that partisan cues can
further polarize the electorate (Hetherington and Weiler 1978; Ward and Tavits 2019). More
precisely, given that individuals tend to evaluate new political information based on their
predisposing attitudes, political cues can lead to increases in the variance of distribution of
preferences among voters.
In particular, those who feel strongly about their political party or group respond more
often to cues associated issues with political actors (Barber and Pope 2019; Huddy, Mason,
and Aaroe 2015). Yet, if these effects are conditional on individual characteristics or specific
to political contexts, the impact of political cues on polarization may be limited. That is,
while political cues have a stronger impact on those who hold predisposing attitudes, it is
not clear if the effect varies across the electoral cycle. For instance, the longer a politician
is in office, more information about the policies become available, which could result in
political cues becoming less informative to citizens. Similarly, individuals may update
their attitudes toward the political leader based on this information to the point in which
views are increasingly aligned and political cues become increasingly less effective. On
the other hand, if individuals sort themselves for reasons less related to policy such as
affective polarization (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012; Iyengar et al. 2019), and equally
respond to political cues, the potential effect of political cues on polarization is larger.
Understanding this process may be especially relevant for newer democracies in which

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party systems are less institutionalized and the rise of charismatic outsiders who challenge
political institutions are more common (Mainwaring 1993). In other words, whereas
high levels of partisanship and the repeated interactions of elites may hinder growing
divisions based on affective polarization (Downs 1957), contexts under which individuals’
predisposing attitudes toward elites are less aligned with the position of stable parties, the
impact of political cues may be larger (Conroy-Krutz, Moehler, and Aguilar 2015; Samuels
and Zucco 2014).
We contribute to the literature by examining a series of survey experiments designed to
test the extent to which political cues on the position of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro
on privatization of the state-owned oil company affect views on the issue across time. We
look at this particular case because it naturally deals with a number of challenges posed
by the research question.

The case

In the majority of studies of partisan cues, it is difficult to accurately distinguish

the influence of individual leaders from their party label. In this case, Bolsonaro was a
longtime member of Congress who often changed parties, including the affiliation to a
small little-known party for the presidential race. Roughly a year after being elected and
internal disputes, Bolsonaro left that party and has not joined another party, in spite of
small efforts to found a new party.
A second challenge is that to isolate the impact of a cue, the treatment should not only
be assigned randomly to respondents, but not be confounded by information from the
real world, otherwise it becomes the interaction of the stimuli with the characteristics of
the particular setting. This is a challenge for all experimental research, but particularly to
a study conducted across time. A cue about the privatization and Bolsonaro provides a
unique opportunity because the president has never taken a strong position on the issue

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and continuously provide ambiguous statements, in spite of historically being against but
selecting an Economy Minister who is vehemently in favor. The two headlines from the
country’s two largest newspapers below are examples of the ambiguity. As such, both
information that the president is in favor or against privatization should be credible to
most voters, and this has hardly changed across time.

Figure 1: Headlines on Bolsonaro and Privatization

The proposal to privatize Petrobrás, the state-owned oil company, has long been a topic
of passioned debate in Brazilian politics, although its salience has varied considerably.
Nationals surveys from 2014 through 2019 suggest that the majority of Brazilians have
against privatization, and that rates of individuals who do not have an opinion have also
been low.

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 70 Discorda 70

59 58
55

39

30

22 21 Concorda 21

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Data

Figure 2: Opinions toward Privatization of Petrobrás, 2014-2019

Studies

To assess the impact of the cue over time, we conduct a series of 7 survey experiments
with the same set-up. Respondents were randomly assigned to a control group in which
there was asked the degree to which they were in agreement with the privatization of
Petrobrás, the state-owned oil company, or to one or two treatment groups in which there
were told that Bolsonaro said that he was in favor or against the proposal.
Specifically, respondentes were read the following question: “Some people believe
that the federal government should privatize Petrobrás. To what extent do you agree or
disagree with this proposal?”. Responses were collected in a seven-point scale where 1

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 Table 1: Summary of Studies

Study Sample Mode N Start End Conditions

1 National F2F 1498 2019-01-29 2019-03-03 Control, Favor
2 National Phone 3403 2019-08-12 2019-08-26 Control, Favor
3 SP Phone 1508 2019-09-03 2019-09-11 Control, Against
4 SP Phone 3006 2019-09-17 2019-10-10 Control, Favor, Against
5 SP Phone 600 2020-03-24 2020-03-26 Control, Against
6 SP Phone 801 2020-03-28 2020-03-29 Control, Favor, Against
7 SP Phone 2408 2020-05-01 2020-05-09 Control, Favor, Moro Favor

means “Completely Disagree” and 7 means “Completely Agree”. Respondents in the

treatment groups were read the same question with an additional sentence: “Some people
believe that the federal government should privatize Petrobrás. President Bolsonaro has
said he is [in favor / against ] this proposal. What about you? To what extent do you agree or
disagree with this proposal?”
The first study was conducted from late January through early March of 2019 with a
national representative sample of the population with a traditional face-to-face survey,
the AmericasBarometer by LAPOP. The second study was conducted by phone in July
of 2019 with a nationally representative sample. And studies three through seven were
also conducted by phone but only with respondents from the state of São Paulo. With
the exception of the first study, all surveys were conducted by the research firm APPC. A
summary of the studies is presented in Table 1.

Preliminary Results

The first step of our first analysis is to simply estimate the average treatment effect of
receiving the conditions. To do so, we run a simple OLS for each of the experiments. To
improve precision, we also include controls for gender, age, and schooling. The results are
presented in Table 2.
Results from the independent regressions show that the treatment indicating he is in

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 Table 2: Support for Privatizing Petrobras, per Experiment

Level of Agreement (7-point scale)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
Treat- Favor 0.25∗ 0.17∗∗ 0.07 0.44∗ 0.01
(0.13) (0.08) (0.12) (0.23) (0.15)
Treat- Against 0.28∗∗ −0.04 0.01 0.26
(0.13) (0.12) (0.21) (0.23)
Treat- Moro Favor 0.27∗
(0.15)
Female 0.01 −0.62∗∗∗ −0.56∗∗∗ −0.54∗∗∗ 0.04 −0.25 −0.30∗∗
(0.13) (0.08) (0.13) (0.10) (0.22) (0.18) (0.12)
Age −0.01∗ −0.01∗ −0.01∗∗ −0.01∗ −0.03∗∗∗ −0.01∗ −0.004
(0.004) (0.003) (0.004) (0.003) (0.01) (0.01) (0.004)
High School −0.39∗∗∗ 0.39∗∗∗ 0.09 0.17 −0.15 −0.07 −0.09
(0.15) (0.11) (0.16) (0.12) (0.26) (0.21) (0.14)
College −0.13 0.39∗∗∗ 0.70∗∗∗ 0.60∗∗∗ 0.26 −0.03 0.12
(0.22) (0.13) (0.19) (0.14) (0.31) (0.26) (0.17)
Constant 4.26∗∗∗ 4.18∗∗∗ 4.33∗∗∗ 4.40∗∗∗ 4.92∗∗∗ 4.25∗∗∗ 3.86∗∗∗
(0.22) (0.18) (0.25) (0.19) (0.40) (0.35) (0.22)
N 1,116 3,207 1,399 2,716 528 724 1,808
Adjusted R2 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.005 0.004
* p<0.1, ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01

9
favor of the proposal was significant in three out of five studies, including strong effects
in the first two studies. In contrast, the stimuli he was against generated more positive
responses in two studies, but only in study 3 the coefficient reaches statistical significance.
In a second step, we want to evaluate the extent to which the treatments increase
variation in responses. If the treatments are associated with increased polarization, we
should see an increase in the amount of variation. To standardize the measurement of
variation in the distribution of respondents, we simply fold responses by subtracting 4
from responses and take the absolute value, so 4 becomes 0 and 1 and 7 become 3. Again,
we run a regression per study and present in Table 2

Table 3: Variation in Responses for Privatizing Petrobras, per Experiment

Radical Responses of Agreement (0-3 scale)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
Treat- Favor −0.001 0.02 −0.03 −0.09 0.04
(0.06) (0.04) (0.05) (0.09) (0.06)
Treat- Against 0.10∗ 0.005 0.02 0.03
(0.05) (0.05) (0.09) (0.09)
Treat- Moro Favor 0.03
(0.06)
Female −0.34∗∗∗ −0.21∗∗∗ −0.20∗∗∗ −0.10∗∗ −0.10 −0.08 −0.10∗∗
(0.06) (0.04) (0.06) (0.04) (0.09) (0.08) (0.05)
Age 0.01∗∗∗ 0.01∗∗∗ 0.01∗∗∗ 0.01∗∗∗ 0.005 0.003 0.005∗∗∗
(0.002) (0.001) (0.002) (0.001) (0.003) (0.002) (0.002)
High School −0.04 −0.01 −0.11 −0.01 −0.26∗∗ −0.02 −0.03
(0.07) (0.05) (0.07) (0.05) (0.11) (0.09) (0.05)
College 0.15 0.01 0.02 0.05 −0.10 −0.19∗ −0.02
(0.11) (0.06) (0.08) (0.05) (0.13) (0.11) (0.07)
Constant 1.55∗∗∗ 1.87∗∗∗ 2.16∗∗∗ 2.13∗∗∗ 2.27∗∗∗ 2.22∗∗∗ 2.23∗∗∗
(0.11) (0.08) (0.11) (0.08) (0.16) (0.14) (0.09)
N 1,116 3,207 1,399 2,716 528 724 1,808
Adjusted R2 0.06 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.003 0.01
* p<0.1, ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01

The results do not indicate the treatments generate more variation in response. The
only exception comes from study 2.

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 Finally, we want to explore the extent to which changes in response are conditional
on predisposing attitudes toward Bolsonaro. The natural expectation is that those who
evaluate Bolsonaro’s performance positively, would be more likely to become in favor
of privatization when receiving the positive cue, but less in favor when receiving the
negative cue. To test this hypothesis, we interact the treatment variables with evaluations
of presidential performance measured (i.e. presidential approval) ex-ante, and coded in a
5-point scale in which 0 means “Terrible” and 4 “Great”.

Table 4: Support for Privatizing Petrobras, per Experiment

Level of Agreement (7-point scale)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
Treat- Favor 0.74∗∗∗ 0.34∗∗∗ 0.85∗∗∗ 1.41∗∗∗ 0.55∗
(0.24) (0.13) (0.20) (0.40) (0.29)
Treat- Against 0.93∗∗∗ 0.40∗∗ 0.68∗ 1.17∗∗∗
(0.22) (0.20) (0.40) (0.40)
Treat- Moro Favor 0.62∗∗
(0.28)
Pres. Approval −0.35∗∗∗ −0.80∗∗∗ −0.30∗∗∗ −0.27∗∗∗ −0.19∗ −0.14 −0.36∗∗∗
(0.10) (0.04) (0.06) (0.06) (0.11) (0.12) (0.07)
Female 0.07 −0.27∗∗∗ −0.29∗∗ −0.34∗∗∗ 0.15 −0.02 −0.07
(0.13) (0.08) (0.13) (0.10) (0.22) (0.18) (0.12)
Age −0.01∗∗ −0.01∗∗∗ −0.01∗∗∗ −0.01∗∗ −0.03∗∗∗ −0.02∗∗∗ −0.01∗∗
(0.004) (0.003) (0.004) (0.003) (0.01) (0.01) (0.004)
High School −0.43∗∗∗ 0.21∗∗ −0.02 0.10 −0.30 −0.06 −0.04
(0.14) (0.10) (0.16) (0.12) (0.26) (0.21) (0.13)
College −0.14 0.20∗ 0.54∗∗∗ 0.49∗∗∗ 0.10 0.05 0.26
(0.21) (0.11) (0.18) (0.14) (0.31) (0.25) (0.16)
Favor * Approval −0.31∗∗ −0.11∗∗ −0.40∗∗∗ −0.48∗∗∗ −0.25∗∗
(0.13) (0.05) (0.09) (0.16) (0.10)
Against * Approval −0.33∗∗∗ −0.18∗∗ −0.36∗∗ −0.41∗∗∗
(0.09) (0.08) (0.16) (0.16)
Moro * Approval −0.16
(0.10)
Constant 4.88∗∗∗ 5.92∗∗∗ 5.00∗∗∗ 4.94∗∗∗ 5.65∗∗∗ 4.62∗∗∗ 4.71∗∗∗
(0.27) (0.17) (0.27) (0.22) (0.45) (0.43) (0.28)
N 1,090 3,146 1,363 2,653 506 714 1,789
Adjusted R2 0.06 0.26 0.11 0.08 0.07 0.09 0.07
* p<0.1, ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01

11
References

12
Appendix A

Table 5: Descriptive statistics, Study 1

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 1,450 3.5 1.0 1.0 5.0
Female 1,498 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 1,498 39.1 16.2 16 92
% HS 1,479 0.4 0.5 0.0 1.0
% College 1,479 0.1 0.3 0.0 1.0

Table 6: Descriptive statistics, Study 2

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 3,317 3.0 1.4 1.0 5.0
Female 3,403 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 3,403 39.5 14.5 16 95
% HS 3,403 0.6 0.5 0 1
% College 3,403 0.2 0.4 0 1

Table 7: Descriptive statistics, Study 3

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 1,469 3.0 1.4 1.0 5.0
Female 1,508 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 1,508 41.0 15.9 16 89
% HS 1,508 0.5 0.5 0 1
% College 1,508 0.2 0.4 0 1

Table 8: Descriptive statistics, Study 4

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 2,893 3.0 1.4 1.0 5.0
Female 3,006 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 3,006 42.1 16.3 16 94
% HS 3,006 0.5 0.5 0 1
% College 3,006 0.2 0.4 0 1

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 Table 9: Descriptive statistics, Study 5
Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 565 2.8 1.4 1.0 5.0
Female 600 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 600 40.3 16.2 16 82
% HS 600 0.5 0.5 0 1
% College 600 0.2 0.4 0 1

Table 10: Descriptive statistics, Study 6

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 786 2.9 1.4 1.0 5.0
Female 801 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 801 40.4 16.1 16 91
% HS 801 0.5 0.5 0 1
% College 801 0.2 0.4 0 1

Table 11: Descriptive statistics, Study 7

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max
Presidential Approval 2,357 2.6 1.4 1.0 5.0
Female 2,408 0.5 0.5 0 1
Age 2,408 41.4 16.0 16 97
% HS 2,408 0.5 0.5 0 1
% College 2,408 0.2 0.4 0 1

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 Table 12: Descriptive per Study and Experimental Condition

Study Condition % Female Mean Age % HS % College

1 Control 46.0 39.6 NA NA
1 Favor 51.2 38.0 NA NA
2 Control 51.1 39.5 56.4 20.4
2 Favor 52.4 39.5 56.3 21.1
3 Against 51.9 40.7 49.4 22.0
3 Control 53.5 41.2 50.7 19.5
4 Against 54.0 42.4 47.3 23.4
4 Control 51.4 42.1 50.0 18.8
4 Favor 51.4 41.9 49.3 19.3
5 Against 51.7 40.9 47.7 21.3
5 Control 52.8 39.8 51.2 19.4
6 Against 48.5 41.2 47.0 19.7
6 Control 52.4 40.5 45.4 21.2
6 Favor 55.8 39.4 48.7 19.9
7 Control 51.7 41.6 48.8 20.6
7 Favor 53.7 40.7 45.7 20.8
7 Moro Favor 51.4 40.5 45.2 20.4

Appendix B

## `summarise()` regrouping output by 'study' (override with `.groups` argument)

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