Partisans on both sides of the political aisle complain that the mainstream media is hypocritical, but they disagree about whom that hypocrisy benefits. In the present research, we examine how counterfactual thinking contributes to this partisan disagreement about media hypocrisy. In three studies (two pre-registered, N = 1342) of people's reactions to media criticism of politicians, we find that people judged the media's criticism of politicians they support as more hypocritical when they imagined whether the media would have criticized a politician from a different party for the same behavior if given the chance. Because this effect only emerged when people judged the media's criticism of politicians they supported, and not politicians they opposed, counterfactual thinking increased partisan division in perceptions of media hypocrisy. We discuss implications for how counterfactual thinking facilitates motivated moral reasoning, contributes to bias in social judgment, and amplifies political polarization.

政治过道两边的党派人士都抱怨主流媒体虚伪，但他们不同意这种虚伪对谁有利。在目前的研究中，我们研究了反事实思维如何促成这种关于媒体虚伪的党派分歧。在关于人们对媒体批评政客的反应的三项研究（两项预先登记，N  = 1342）中，我们发现当人们想象媒体是否会批评他们支持的政客时，他们认为媒体对他们支持的政客的批评更加虚伪。如果有机会，批评来自不同政党的政治家的相同行为。因为这种效果只有在人们判断媒体对他们支持的政客的批评而不是他们反对的政客时才会出现，因此反事实思维增加了对媒体虚伪看法的党派分歧。我们讨论了反事实思维如何促进有动机的道德推理、导致社会判断的偏见以及放大政治两极分化的影响。