When the Republicans lost a past election (what year?), the Democrats’ refrain was "It’s the economy, stupid." Well, after this election, the Democrats are still trying to figure it out, and I often want to grab them and say "It’s the mental model, stupid." While the Republicans grasp the mental model of their constituency with perfect fluency, the Democrats keep thinking "they’ll believe the facts." Oh, ye of little faith in the mental model!

Link: WSJ.com – Science Journal (paid subscription, but watch for further coverge of this scientist).

"People build mental models," explains Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychology professor at the University of Western Australia, Crawley, who led the study that will be published in Psychological Science. "By the time they receive a retraction [of a news story], the original misinformation has already become an integral part of that mental model, or world view, and disregarding it would leave the world view a shambles." Therefore, he and his colleagues conclude in their paper, "People continue to rely on misinformation even if they demonstrably remember and understand a subsequent retraction."