Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T03:46:31.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Individual and Contextual Variations in Political Candidate Appraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Wendy M. Rahn ,
John H. Aldrich  and
Eugene Borgida
Wendy M. Rahn
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
John H. Aldrich
Affiliation:
Duke University
Eugene Borgida
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this note we elaborate on the conditions under which on-line and memory-based strategies of political candidate evaluation can be implemented. We suggest that the structure of information may be an important contextual variable affecting the voter's choice of these strategies. In addition, we propose that citizens with less political sophistication are particularly sensitive to structural differences in the political information environment. We use an experimental design that manipulates the information-processing context to test these ideas. Our results suggest that the context in which information is presented plays a critical role in moderating the influence of individual differences in political sophistication.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 193 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, John H., Niemi, Richard G., Rabinowitz, George, and Rohde, David W.. 1982. “The Measurement of Public Opinion about Public Policy: A Report on Some New Issue Question Formats.” American Journal of Political Science 26:391–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargh, John A., and Thein, Roman D.. 1985. “Individual Construct Accessibility, Person Memory, and the Recall–Judgment Link: The Case of Information Overload.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49:1129–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1988. Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fiske, Susan T., Kinder, Donald R., and Larter, W. Michael. 1983. “The Novice and the Expert: Knowledge-based Strategies in Political Cognition.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 19:381–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hastie, Reid, and Park, Bernadette. 1986. “The Relationship between Memory and Judgment Depends on Whether the Judgment Task Is Memory-based or On-Line.” Psychological Review 93:258–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hastie, Reid, and Pennington, Nancy. 1989. “Notes on the Distinction between Memory-based Versus On-Line Judgments.” In On-Line Processes in Person Perception, ed. Bassili, John N.. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Just, Marion, Crigler, Ann, and Wallach, Lori. 1990. “Thirty Seconds or Thirty Minutes: What Viewers Learn from Spot Advertisements and Candidate Debates.” Journal of Communication 40:120–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A. 1990. “Expertise and Political Psychology.” Social Cognition 8:1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lang, Annie. 1990. “Involuntary Attention and Physiological Arousal Evoked by Structural Features and Emotional Content in TV Commercials.” Communication Research 17:275–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, Milton G., McGraw, Kathleen M., and Stroh, Patrick. 1989. “An Impression-driven Model of Candidate Evaluation.” American Political Science Review 83:399–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luskin, Robert C. 1987. “Measuring Political Sophistication.” American Journal of Political Science 31:856–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGraw, Kathleen M., Lodge, Milton, and Stroh, Patrick. 1990. “On-Line Processing in Candidate Evaluation: The Effects of Issue Order, Issue Importance, and Sophistication.” Political Behavior 12:41–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1991. The Reasoning Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rahn, Wendy M., Aldrich, John H., Borgida, Eugene, and Sullivan, John L.. 1990. “A Social-cognitive Model of Candidate Appraisal.” In information and Democratic Processes, ed. Ferejohn, John A. and Kuklinski, James H.. Urbana–Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Showers, Carolin, and Cantor, Nancy. 1985. “Social Cognition: A Look at Motivated Strategies.” Annual Review of Psychology 36:275–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Srull, Thomas K., and Wyer, Robert S., Jr. 1986. “The Role of Chronic and Temporary Goals in Social Information Processing.” In Handbook of Motivation and Cognition, ed. Sorrentino, Richard M. and Tory Higgins, E.. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Thorson, Esther, and Lang, Annie. 1992. “The Effects of Television Videographics and Lecture Familiarity on Adult Cardiac Orienting Responses and Memory.” Communication Research 19:346–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorson, Esther, Reeves, Byron, and Schleuder, Joan. 1985. “Message Complexity and Attention to Television.” Communication Research 12:427–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westlye, Mark C. 1991. Senate Elections and Campaign Intensity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.