‘Peilingen zijn palingen’, tot je eigen partij het goed doet Een survey-experiment naar de interesse in zetelpeilingen

Opinion polling has gained popularity among Dutch journalists, politicians, and voters. But what explains whether people express an interest in opinion polls? In this study we report the results from a largescale experiment among over 23.000 voters based on the EenVandaag Opiniepanel, where we exposed respondents to the same poll results, but varied the accompanying text to include positive or negative information on party performance. The theory of motivated reasoning states that the information environment interacts with partisan predispositions to form new attitudes. Accordingly, we expect that respondents will show a smaller interest in opinion polling when their own party performs poorly in the polls. Our results are consistent with these expectations as the PvdA- and VVD-voters in our panel appear to dismiss polls when their party loses support, while they show larger interest when their party performs well.