These kinds of studies are well known. A few years ago, the "Organizations and Markets" blog wrote about "Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus" by Dan M. Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith and Donald Braman. I tracked down the original paper and posted a link and comments on my own blog. ("Why Evidence is not Enough" here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/...)

The authors created three pairs of scientific papers pro and con on gun control, nuclear power, and global warming. The fictional authors had carefully equivalent qualifications from universities and cited publications.

It was not just that people agreed with what they agreed with. They discounted the academic credentials of their opponents while underscoring the exactly equal backgrounds of their chosen experts. In other words, their definition of "expert" was "someone who agrees with me."

From the New Yorker article here, it seems easy to understand why the works of Ayn Rand are popular with young readers: they have less invested in previous choices; and (saliently), they respond to the self-affirming message.

That was actually a very informative blog post. Thanks, Mike.