A New Measure for the Tendency to Select Ideologically Congruent Political Information: Scale Development and Validation

Yariv Tsfati

Abstract


Selective exposure is a popular research construct, but the strategies used to operationalize ideologically congruent exposure in contemporary correlational research are problematic. This article offers a novel approach, asking people directly about their tendency to seek information that is ideologically congruent with their opinions. A new measure for the tendency toward congruent selective exposure is proposed and was tested on three different data sets. In all three studies, confirmatory factor analysis revealed a two-factor model, with one factor representing the tendency to select congruent information and the other representing the tendency to avoid incongruent information.


Keywords


selective exposure, selective avoidance, confirmation bias

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