¹ Studies on group identification include Conover, Pamela Johnston, ‘The Influence of Group Identifications on Political Perceptions and Evaluations’, American Journal of Political Science, 46 (1984), 760–85Google Scholar; Kinder, Donald R., Rosenstone, Steven J. and Hansen, John Mark, ‘Group Economic Well-Being and Political Choice’, a pilot study report to the 1984 NES Planning Committee and Board of Overseers, 1983Google Scholar; Klein, Ethel, Gender Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: and R, Laurie A.hodebeck, ‘Group Identifications and Policy Preferences: A Reformulation of Group Influence Models’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, 1985Google Scholar. Studies on the role of group consciousness include Miller, Arthur, Gurin, Patricia and Gurin, Gerald, ‘Electoral Implications of Group Identification and Consciousness: The Reintroduction of a Concept’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 1978Google Scholar; Miller, Arthur, Gurin, Patricia, Gurin, Gerald and Malanchuk, Oksana, ‘Group Consciousness and Political Participation’, American Journal of Political Science, 25 (1981), 494–511CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gurin, Patricia, Miller, Arthur and Gurin, Gerald, ‘Stratum Identification and Consciousness’, Social Psychological Quarterly, 43 (1980), 30–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gurin, Patricia, ‘Women's Gender Consciousness’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 49 (1985), 143–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shingles, Richard D., ‘Black Consciousness and Political Participation: The Missing Link’, American Political Science Review, 75 (1981), 76–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Studies of social groups as political symbols include Sears, David O., Hensler, Carl P. and Speer, L. K., ‘Whites' Opposition to “Busing”: Self-interest or Symbolic Politics?’, American Political Science Review, 73 (1979), 369–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sears, David O., Lau, Richard R., Tyler, Tom R. and Allen, Harris M. Jr, ‘Self-Interest versus Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting’, American Political Science Review, 74 (1980), 670–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Studies on group deprivation and intergroup conflict include Crosby, Faye J., Relative Deprivation and Working Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Rhodebeck, Laurie A., ‘Group Deprivation: An Alternative Model for Explaining Collective Political Action’, Micropolitics, 1 (1981), 239–67Google Scholar; Sears, David O. and McConahay, John S., The Politics of Violence: The New Urban Blacks and the Watts Riot (Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin, 1973)Google Scholar; and Vanneman, R. D. and Pettigrew, Thomas F., ‘Race and Relative Deprivation in the Urban United States’, Race, 13 (1972), 461–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Exceptions to this include Miller, et al. , ‘Electoral Implications of Group Identification’Google Scholar, and Lau, Richard R., ‘Reference Group Influence on Political Attitudes and Behavior: A Preliminary Report on the Importance of Social, Political and Psychological Contexts’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1983.Google Scholar

³ Where ‘groups’ are voluntary (e.g., political organizations) or defined in terms of face-to-face interaction, this definition of group membership may be inappropriate. The definition is most appropriate when the meaning of the term ‘group’ is essentially that of a category; and therefore, it applies most readily to social groupings based on age, race and sex, etc. (see Richard R. Lau, ‘Individual and Contextual Influences on Group Identification’, unpublished manuscript, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University). Finally, even when the term ‘group’ refers to social categories, group membership may be defined subjectively, rather than objectively as done here (see, for example, Turner, John C., ‘Towards a Cognitive Redefinition of the Social Group’, in Tajfel, Henri, ed., Social Identity and Intergroup Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

⁴ See Gurin, et al. , ‘Stratum Identification and Consciousness’Google Scholar; Miller, et al. , ‘Group Consciousness and Political Participation’Google Scholar; and Tajfel, Henri, Human Groups and Social Categories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

⁵ For example, Rhodebeck, , ‘Group Identification and Policy Preferences’Google Scholar; and Lau, , ‘Reference Group Influence on Political Attitudes’.Google Scholar

⁶ For a similar discussion see Klein, , Gender Politics.Google Scholar

⁷ Miller, et al. , ‘Electoral Implications of Group Identification’, p. 18.Google Scholar

⁸ For a more extensive review of previous research see Lau, , ‘Reference Group Influence’Google Scholar, or Sears, David O., Huddie, Leonie and Jessor, Tom, ‘Groups in Politics: Proposal for Measurement R & D for 1985 Pilot Study’Google Scholar, a report to the NES Board of Overseers, 1985.

⁹ Lau, , ‘Reference Group Influence’Google Scholar: Sears, et al. , ‘Groups in Politics’.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Sears, et al. , ‘Whites' Opposition to “Busing”’Google Scholar; Sears, et al. , ‘Self-Interest versus Symbolic Polities’Google Scholar; Sears, et al. , ‘Groups in Politics’.Google Scholar

¹¹ See, for example, Bobo, Lawrence, ‘Whites' Opposition to Busing: Symbolic Racism or Realistic Group Conflict?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45 (1983), 1196–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klein, , Gender Politics, pp. 81–94Google Scholar; Gurin, , ‘Women's Gender Consciousness’Google Scholar; and Rhodebeck, , ‘Group Deprivation’.Google Scholar

¹² Key exceptions to this include Gurin, et al. , ‘Stratum Identification and Consciousness’; Lau, ‘Reference Group Influence’Google Scholar; and Miller, et al. , ‘Group Consciousness and Political Participation’.Google Scholar

¹³ Schuman, Howard, Steeh, Charlotte and Bobo, Lawrence, Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Kinder, Donald R. and Sears, David O., ‘Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism versus Racial Threats to the Good Life’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40 (1981), 414–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sears, et al. , ‘Whites' Opposition to “Busing”’Google Scholar; Kluegel, James R. and Smith, Eliot R., ‘Whites' Beliefs about Blacks' Opportunity’, American Sociological Review, 47 (1982), 518–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ An exception to this is Sears, David O., Huddie, Leonie and Schaffer, Lynitta G., ‘A Schematic Variant of Symbolic Politics Theory as Applied to Racial and Gender Equality’, in Lau, Richard R. and Sears, David O., eds, Political Cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Earlier works with similar approaches include Brigham, John C., ‘Ethnic Stereotypes’, Psychological Bulletin, 76 (1971), 15–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stephan, Walter G., ‘Intergroup Relations’ in Vol. 2 of Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliot, eds, Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd edn (New York: Random House, 1985)Google Scholar. For an overview of the application of information processing theory to political science, see Hastie, Reid, ‘A Primer of Information-Processing Theory for the Political Scientist’Google Scholar in Lau, and Sears, , Political Cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition.Google Scholar

¹⁷ For an explanation of the schema concept see Conover, Pamela Johnston and Feldman, Stanley, ‘How People Organize the Political World: A Schematic Model’, American Journal of Political Science, 25 (1984), 617–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Lau, Richard R. and Sears, David O., ‘Social Cognition and Political Cognition: The Past, the Present, and the Future’Google Scholar, in Lau, and Sears, , Political Cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on CognitionGoogle Scholar; Taylor, Shelley E. and Crocker, Jennifer, ‘Schematic Bases of Social Information Processing in Higgins, E. Tory, Herman, C. P., and Zanna, Mark P., eds, Social Cognition: The Ontario Symposium (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981).Google Scholar

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¹⁹ Conover, , ‘The Influence of Group Identifications’Google Scholar; and Stephan, , ‘Intergroup Relations’.Google Scholar

²⁰ For a discussion of the importance of ‘purpose’ in political thinking see Kinder, Donald R., ‘Understanding Political Understanding’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1985Google Scholar; Lane, Robert E., ‘What are People Trying to do With Their Schemata?’Google Scholar in Lau, and Sears, , Political Cognition: The 19th Annual Carnegie Symposium on CognitionGoogle Scholar; and Lodge, Milton, ‘Notes on a Cognitive-Science Approach to Political Information Processing’, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1985.Google Scholar

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²³ For a discussion of this point see Fiske, Susan T., ‘Schéma-Triggered Affect: Application to Social Perception’ in Clark, Margaret S. and Fiske, Susan T., eds, Affect and Cognition: the 17th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1982)Google Scholar; and Lau, and Sears, , ‘Social Cognition and Political Cognition’.Google Scholar

²⁴ Fiske, Susan T. and Taylor, Shelley E., Social Cognition (New York: Random House, 1984).Google Scholar

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⁴¹ Stephan, , ‘Intergroup Conflict’, p. 607Google Scholar; and Pettigrew, Thomas F., ‘The Ultimate Attribution Error: Extending Allport's Cognitive Analysis of Prejudice’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 5 (1979), 461–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴² Brewer, , ‘In-Group Bias in the Minimal Intergroup Situation’, p. 322Google Scholar. See also Conover, , ‘The Influence of Group Identifications on Political Perceptions and Evaluations’Google Scholar; and Kramer, Roderick M. and Brewer, Marilynn B., ‘Effects of Group Identity on Resource Use in a Simulated Commons Dilemma’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46 (1984), 1044–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ An exception to this general pattern may occur for outgroups where people's affect is very strong and their schemata are very well-developed. In the United States, racial groups are a key example of this. We might therefore expect to find that racial groups have a greater role than other groups in the political thinking of whites. See Carmines, Edward G. and Stimson, James A., ‘Racial Issues and the Structure of Mass Belief Systems’, Journal of Politics, 44 (1982), 2–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁴ Feldman, , ‘Economic Self-interest and Political Behavior’Google Scholar; and Rasinski, , ‘What's Fair is Fair – or Is It?’Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Stephan, , ‘Intergroup Conflict’.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ For the purposes of this paper, ‘women's issues’ are defined as those issues ‘where policy consequences are likely to have a more immediate and direct impact on significantly larger numbers of women than men’ (see Carroll, Susan J., Women as Candidates in American Politics (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 15)Google Scholar. Of course, from the perspective of the individual, what constitutes a ‘woman's issue’ will vary from person to person depending on their perception of group cues and their existing schemata.

⁴⁷ Male groups associated with sports teams, men's clubs and the military may promote bonding and a sense of solidarity among their members; but they do not necessarily create a heightened sense of group identity (i.e., ‘I am a man’) or, more important, group consciousness. Similarly, in the 1970s one backlash of the women's movement was the creation of a ‘men's’ movement. However, this movement never really ‘took-off’, either in the popular culture or as a topic of academic research. For a discussion on the men's movement see, David, Deborah S. and Brannon, Robert, The Forty-nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1976).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Gurin, , ‘Women's Gender Consciousness’Google Scholar; Kalmuss, Debra, Gurin, Patricia and Townsend, Aloen L., ‘Feminist and Sympathetic Feminist Consciousness’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 11 (1981), 131–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Klein, , Gender Politics, pp. 105–39.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Gurin, , ‘Women's Gender Consciousness’.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ When variables are rescaled to a zero-to-one format they are not being dichotomized. The lowest value is set to 0, the highest value to 1 and all intermediate categories to corresponding fractional values.

⁵¹ Klein, , Gender Politics, p. 107.Google Scholar