(1) information and political perception
TRANSCRIPT
INFORMATION AND POLITICAL PERCEPTION
by
JORDAN PENNEFATHER
B.A., CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, DOMINGUEZ HILLS, 2003
M.A., UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 2005
A thesis submitted to the
Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Colorado in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
2008
3337221
3337221 2009
This thesis entitled:
Information and Political Perception
written by Jordan Pennefather
has been approved for the
Department of Psychology
Dr. Bernadette Park (chair)
Dr. Charles Judd
Date: ____________
The final copy of this thesis has been examine by the signatories, and we find
that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of
scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline.
HRC protocol # 0707.12
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ABSTRACT
Jordan Pennefather (Ph.D. Psychology)
Information and Political Perception
Directed by Dr. Bernadette Park, Professor, Department of Psychology,
University of Colorado at Boulder
Past research into the effect of information on political perception has
tended to use survey research, which while allowing strong inferences about
external validity is troubled by decreased control of the information that
respondents use when forming impressions of the candidates. Moving into the
laboratory allows us to examine the effect of the specific information on
perceptions.
The first study examined how the relevance and diagnosticity of
individuating information to judgments of political candidates’ attitude position on
various issues influences perception of the candidates. At Time 1, subjects
learned basic information about the candidates (photograph, name, and political
party). At Time 2 they learned information that was irrelevant, relevant but
nondiagnostic, or relevant and diagnostic of the candidates’ political stands.
Overall subjects projected more to the ingroup candidates. Ingroup projection
decreased directionally at Time 2. At Time 1 subjects contrasted the outgroup
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candidates, at Time 2 projection was non-significant. Overall Democrat subjects
agreed more about the candidates’ positions than Republicans. Polarization of
the political parties decreased at Time 2.
In the second study subjects learned about an ingroup candidate
(Democrat) who held positions on six issues that were consistent with the
stereotypic positions of his political party, or were mixed (three consistent and
three inconsistent). Additionally, subjects learned that the candidate was either
highly endorsed by fellow Democrats (popular), or weakly endorsed (unpopular).
Subjects showed preference for the consistent candidate. Additionally, highly
affiliated subjects showed a non-significant tendency to use consistency
information less when the candidate was popular.
The final study examined data from the 1980 and 1988 American National
Election Studies (ANES). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to
examine both ideological and issue-specific projection, as well as the impact of
self-reported political knowledge on polarization of the two parties. In general the
two models demonstrated the tendency of the respondents to project their own
political positions towards their own political party. Additionally, we have shown
that the respondents contrasted the outgroup party’s position from their own.
Increased political knowledge led to polarization of the two parties, by increasing
perceptions of extremity for both ingroup and outgroup.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1
Models of Vote Choice...................................................................... 1
Styles of Voting................................................................................. 3
Party Voting................................................................................... 3
Ideological Voting .......................................................................... 4
Personality Voting ......................................................................... 5
Issue Voting................................................................................... 6
Information Types ............................................................................. 6
Own Position ................................................................................. 6
Party Stand ................................................................................... 9
Candidate Information ................................................................. 10
Endorsement and Popularity ....................................................... 12
CHAPTER 2: STUDY ONE ....................................................................... 17
Projection........................................................................................ 18
Consensus...................................................................................... 19
Polarization ..................................................................................... 20
Strength of Affiliation....................................................................... 21
Method............................................................................................ 23
Subjects ...................................................................................... 24
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Materials...................................................................................... 24
Procedure.................................................................................... 27
Results............................................................................................ 30
Strength of Affiliation ................................................................... 31
Projection .................................................................................... 31
Consensus .................................................................................. 37
Polarization ................................................................................. 43
Discussion ...................................................................................... 47
CHAPTER 3: STUDY TWO....................................................................... 50
Consistency .................................................................................... 50
Popularity........................................................................................ 53
Method............................................................................................ 56
Subjects ...................................................................................... 56
Materials...................................................................................... 56
Procedure.................................................................................... 59
Results............................................................................................ 60
Strength of Affiliation ................................................................... 61
Impression Variables................................................................... 61
Projection .................................................................................... 69
Process Variables ....................................................................... 71
Discussion ...................................................................................... 82
CHAPTER 4: STUDY THREE .................................................................... 86
Method............................................................................................ 87
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1980 ANES ................................................................................. 87
1988 ANES ................................................................................. 89
Results............................................................................................ 91
1980 ANES Dataset .................................................................... 91
1988 Super Tuesday ANES Dataset ........................................... 95
Discussion .................................................................................... 105
CHAPTER 5: GENERAL DISCUSSION...................................................... 108
REFERENCES ..................................................................................... 115
APPENDIX A: PHOTOGRAPHS OF POLITICAL CANDIDATES ....................... 130
APPENDIX B: STUDY ONE POLITICALLY IRRELEVENT STATEMENTS.......... 131
APPENDIX C: STUDY ONE POLITICALLY RELEVENT-UNDIAGNOSTIC
STATEMENTS ...................................................................................... 132
APPENDIX D: STUDY ONE POLITICALLY RELEVENT-DIAGNOSTIC
STATEMENTS................................................................................................. 133
APPENDIX E: STUDY ONE SELF RATING QUESTIONNAIRE ....................... 135
Section 1: Self-ratings of Personality Traits .................................. 135
Section 2: Political Attitudes, Ideology, and Knowledge................ 136
APPENDIX F: STUDY ONE RATINGS OF POLITICAL CANDIDATES
QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................................. 138
Section 1: Ratings of Candidates' of Personality Traits ................ 138
Section 2: Political Attitudes, Ideology, and Knowledge................ 139
APPENDIX G: STUDY TWO TARGET....................................................... 141
Popular ......................................................................................... 141
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Unpopular ..................................................................................... 141
APPENDIX H: STUDY TWO CONSISTENT TARGET INFORMATION .............. 142
APPENDIX I: STUDY TWO INCONSISTENT TARGET INFORMATION.............. 143
APPENDIX J: STUDY TWO SELF RATING QUESTIONNAIRE ....................... 144
APPENDIX K: STUDY ONE RATINGS OF POLITICAL CANDIDATES
QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................................. 147
APPENDIX L: STUDY TWO RECALL MEASURE ........................................ 152
APPENDIX M: STUDY TWO RECOGNITION MEASURE .............................. 153
APPENDIX N: STUDY TWO SUBTYPING MEASURE .................................. 155
APPENDIX O: STUDY THREE 1980 ANES POLITICAL ISSUES .................. 156
APPENDIX P: STUDY THREE 1980 ANES KNOWLEDGE MEASURES…..…158
APPENDIX Q: STUDY THREE 1988 ANES POLITICAL ISSUES .................. 159
APPENDIX R: STUDY THREE 1988 ANES IDEOLOGY MEASURE .............. 160
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. 1980 ANES: Loading and structural coefficients: Unstandardized and standardized estimates for Democrat (left) and Republican (Right) respondents................................................................................ 96
Table 2. 1980 ANES: Standardized Residual Covariances for Democrat
(Left) and Republican (Right) respondents. ........................................... 97 Table 3. 1988 ANES: Loading and structural coefficients: Unstandardized
and standardized estimates for Democrat (left) and Republican (Right) respondents.............................................................................. 103
Table 4. 1988 ANES: Standardized Residual Covariances for Democrat
(Left) and Republican (Right) respondents .......................................... 104
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Affiliation. Frequency Distribution of subjects’ self-rated strength of affiliation to their political party.. ........................................... 31
Figure 2. Projection. Correlation between subjects’ self-ratings and their ratings of the targets, by ingroup/outgroup and affiliation (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation).. ............................................................................. 33
Figure 3. Projection. Correlation between subjects’ self-ratings and their
ratings of the targets, by time and ingroup/outgroup.............................. 35 Figure 4. Consensus. Average agreement between subjects’ ratings of
the targets on the 16 attitude items by time and information condition. . 41 Figure 5. Consensus. Average agreement between subjects’ ratings of
the targets on the 16 attitude items by subjects’ political party and information condition. ............................................................................. 42
Figure 6. Polarization. Average rating of Democrat targets on the 16
attitude issues minus the average rating of the Republican targets by time and information condition. .............................................................. 45
Figure 7. Polarization. Average rating of Democrat targets on the 16
attitude issues minus the average rating of the Republican targets by subject’s political party membership and strength of affiliation (+1 and -1 standard deviation). ........................................................................... 46
Figure 8. Affiliation Strength. Frequency Distribution of Subjects’ self-
rated strength of affiliation to their political party. ................................... 62 Figure 9. Evaluation. Subjects’ rated liking of the candidate by
consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation). ............................................................. 63
Figure 10. Voting Likelihood. Subjects’ rated likelihood of voting for the
candidate by consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation).................................. 65
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Figure 11. Similarity. Subjects’ rated similarity to the candidate by consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation). ............................................................. 67
Figure 12. Candidate’s Affiliation Strength. Subjects’ rating of the
candidate’s strength of affiliation to the Democratic Party by consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation). ............................................................. 68
Figure 13. . Recall. Frequency Distribution of number freely recalled
items ...................................................................................................... 72 Figure 14. Recall. Number of freely recalled candidate statements by
popularity and consistency conditions.................................................... 73 Figure 15. Recognition. Weighted average of recognized candidate
statements by consistency condition and whether the statements were actually mentioned about the candidate (Old) or newly presented (New). ................................................................................... 75
Figure 16. Recognition in the Inconsistent Conditions. Weighted average
of recognized candidate statements by whether the candidate’s statement was consistent or inconsistent on the issue and whether the statement was actually mentioned about the candidate (Old) or newly presented (New). ......................................................................... 77
Figure 17. Valuation across Popularity Conditions. Average decrease in
valuation of the issues from Time 1 and Time 2 by consistency condition and whether the issue had been mentioned in the candidate statement (seen) or was not mentioned (unseen).................................. 80
Figure 18. Subtyping. Subjects’ rated typicality of the candidate for the
Democratic Party by popularity, and affiliation (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation)............................................................................................... 82
Figure 19a. 1980 ANES Structural Equation Model 1 (Democrat Voters):
Model of Democratic Party voters’ self-ratings on four political issues and their self-rated political knowledge effect on projection and polarization of the Democratic and Republican Parties.......................... 92
Figure 19b. 1980 ANES Structural Equation Model 1 (Republican Voters):
Model of Republican Party voters’ self-ratings on four political issues and their self-rated political knowledge effect on projection and polarization of the Democratic and Republican Parties.......................... 93
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Figure 20a. 1988 Super Tuesday ANES Structural Equation Model 1 (Democrat Voters): Model of Democratic Party voters’ self-ratings on political ideology and their self-rated political knowledge effect on projection and polarization of the Democratic and Republican Parties. . 99
Figure 20b. 1988 Super Tuesday ANES Structural Equation Model 1
(Republican Voters): Model of Republican Party voters’ self-ratings on political ideology and their self-rated political knowledge effect on projection and polarization of the Democratic and Republican Parties.100
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Chapter 1:
Introduction
"A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at
large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and
in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law." Alexander
Hamilton.
As Alexander Hamilton pointed out, voting in political elections is one of
the central rights that Americans have. Voting Americans help to elect
representatives who will have the power to shape the country. Whether it is
local, state, or national elections, voters are selecting representatives who will
have both direct and indirect impact on their lives. Since elections are so
important and are the average American’s main form of political participation, it is
important to understand how they decide which candidate to vote for.
Models of Vote Choice
A number of models have been developed over the years to explain voting
behavior. One of the earliest was the unconstrained rational voter model (Arrow,
1951; von Neuman & Morgenstern, 1947). This model, borrowed from economic
theory, described political decision makers as engaging in value-maximization,
that is they examine all the existing information and make the choice that best
meets their self-interested goals. This model views voters as “omniscient
calculators” (Lupia, McCubbins, & Popkin, 2000), or “ambulatory encyclopedias”
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(Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). The constrained rational model (Downs, 1957) grew
from the unconstrained perspective and, while it makes the same assumptions
about the processes involved, it does not assume that the voters have the same
cognitive capabilities to search out, encode, and recall unlimited information.
One of the most popular models of voter decision making in political science was
outlined in The American Voter (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960).
This model describes voting behavior as early learned social identification. In
this model party identification is key to vote choice, and colors later views of
candidates from both parties (Sears, 1975; Sears & Funk, 1991). A fourth model,
adapted from work on heuristics by Kahneman and Tversky (1972, 1973, 1984;
Tversky & Kahneman, 1973, 1974) argues that voting is a very complex decision,
involving large amounts of information in which mental shortcuts, or heuristics,
are often used to simplify the choice. One example of a using a heuristic in the
political domain is using the representativeness heuristic to apply stereotypes or
schemata about where the political parties stand on issues to form impressions
about a specific party member. A final model describes voters as “intuitive
decision makers” (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006) who use “low information rationality” to
make the choice with very little effort (Popkin, 1991; Sniderman, Brody, &
Tetlock, 1991). This model assumes that voting is more of a semiautomatic
response than a careful weighting of the merits of each candidate. This model
argues that since most voters do not know much about politics (Delli Carpini &
Keeter, 1996) and few have a real ideology (Zaller, 1992) they do not have the
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information or motivation required to make the complex calculations required by
the rational models.
Styles of Voting
What all of these models assume is that voters use some information in
their vote decision. The models differ in the amount, and in some cases type of
information used to make their choice. Each of these models makes
assumptions about the dimensions of the candidate that voters use to make their
decisions. The two rational models would argue that voters should vote based
on either the candidate’s political ideology or stance on specific issues. The
social identification, heuristic, and intuitive models all suggest that voters use
party identification more than specific issues or ideology. The heuristic and
intuitive models would also suggest voters use the candidate’s personality to
vote.
Party Voting. One way to vote is along party lines. Most Americans are
members of one of the two primary political parties, and thus could always vote
for the candidates from their own party. Research has demonstrated that this is
often the case, with political party being the most powerful predictor of electoral
behavior (Belknap & Campbell, 1952; Miller & Shanks, 1996). Party cues help to
reduce uncertainty for voters (Goodman & Murray, 2007). However, party
membership is not the whole answer. Within primaries there are multiple
candidates from the same party, so party membership will not suffice to select a
candidate. Even within general elections political party is not the entire answer.
According to a recent study, the influence of political partisanship on voting has
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been decreasing in strength, with the percentage of voters identifying with one
party declining from 73% in the 1950’s and 1960 to 61% by 1992 (Holbrook,
1996). This decrease in party identification has been accompanied by a shift
from party-centered voting to candidate-centered voting (Wattenburg, 1992). If
the candidate does in fact influence the voting process above and beyond the
power of the political party, what is it about the candidate that influences these
judgments?
Ideological Voting. Voters could judge the candidates using their
perceptions of the candidates’ ideology. “Ideology provides clues to how the
candidate will act in the future and what positions he will take on issues that have
yet to emerge” (Waldman & Jamieson, 2002). So voters could place the
candidates along a continuum from liberal to conservative and select the
candidate that most closely matches their own position on this continuum.
However, many researchers argue that the average American is not very
ideologically sophisticated (Kinder, 1983; Sniderman, 1993). In fact, Bennett
(1995) found that the typical American has very limited understanding about what
liberalism and conservatism actually mean. More importantly, Dalton (1979)
found that only 21% of American voters polled in 1974 and 1975 reported using
ideological concepts in their vote decision-making process. If ideology explains
only a portion of vote choice this leaves a gap in our understanding of voting
behavior. If voters are making candidate-based decisions, and are not simply
using ideology, what else can they use?
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Personality Voting. Voters may also be using the candidates’
personalities to inform their decisions (Caprara & Zimbardo, 2004). Sears (1969)
proposed that American voters use personalities to make their choice of
candidates because personalities are often easier to process than candidate
platform. Miller, Wattenburg, and Malanchuk (1985) state that candidate image
is “one of the most important but least understood facets of American politics.”
Researchers have found that voters look for candidates that are trustworthy (Kaid
& Hirsh, 1973), charismatic (Baxter, Young, & Bittner, 1973; see Hellweg, 1995),
and competent (Wakshlag & Edison, 1979). Voters who are frequent television
news viewer are more likely to rely on candidate personality to make their vote
choice (Keeter, 1987). Additionally, less educated individuals are more likely to
vote using personality than more educated voters (Abrajano, 2005; Nicholson,
Pantoja, & Segura, 2006). Media research has demonstrated that exposure to
televised coverage of the 1972 Presidential campaign increased interest in both
the candidates’ personalities and the issues (Hofstetter, Zukin, & Buss, 1978).
Other research has shown that the three major networks influenced the issue
agenda but had little influence on changing voters’ views of the candidates’
personalities (Hellweg, 1995). Many researchers argue that rather than voting
based on personality, voting on the issues is the more rational approach (Kinder,
1998).
Issue Voting. Downs (1957) argued that voters have specific policy
preferences on issues of interest to them and select parties that are closest to
their own. Proponents of the “rational voter” would argue that voting for a
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candidate with similar attitudes, especially on issues of importance to the voter is
a rational strategy (Shapiro, 1969). An abundance of research has demonstrated
that voters tend to select candidates that they view as holding similar attitudes
(Brent & Granberg, 1982; Feldman & Conover, 1983; Granberg & Brent, 1974;
Judd, Kenny, & Krosnick, 1983; Kendall & Yum, 1984; Kinder, 1978; Krosnick,
1990). So when people vote on the issues, which according to some, is the most
rational way to vote, they want to select the candidate they think shares their
attitudes (Shapiro, 1969). This raises an important question: how do voters
judge where candidates stand on the issues?
Information Types
There are a several types of information that voters use to form their
impressions about political candidates. Voters can use their own stand on the
issue. They can use their stereotypes of where the candidate’s political party
normally stands on the issue. Voters can also use information they have
received about the political candidate. Finally, voters can use endorsements
from trusted groups or individuals. Let us examine each of these sources of
information in greater detail.
Own Position. Before voters know anything about the specific candidate’s
position they know where they themselves stand on the issue. A voter’s own
positions on the issue can influence their perceptions of the candidate’s stand.
This process of using one’s own attitude to form impressions of candidates’
stands is known as projection and has been recognized by many researchers as
important to how voters form impressions of political candidates (Brent &
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Granberg, 1982; Feldman & Conover, 1983; Granberg & Brent, 1974; Judd,
Kenny, & Krosnick, 1983; Kinder, 1978; Krosnick, 1990). In their model of voter
choice, Conover and Feldman (1982) maintained that projection is a central
process in vote decisions, demonstrating that even when the position of the
candidate’s political party is controlled for there is still significant correlation
between the voter’s position and the ingroup candidate’s position. In fact, Quist
and Crano (2003) found that perceived similarity between the voters’ own
position and their impressions of the candidates’ position predicted over 84% of
the variance in voter choice.
The typical examination of projection in the political domain has involved
examining survey data looking for correlations between the voter’s self-reported
ideology or issue position and their rating of the candidates. For example, Brent
and Granberg (1977) examined data from the 1972 American National Election
Studies (ANES), a nationally representative sample collected during presidential
elections. They calculated the correlations between the respondent’s self-ratings
on the issues (guaranteed jobs, tax reform, Vietnam, inflation, legalizing
marijuana, bussing, health insurance, pollution, and women’s role in society) and
their perceptions of Richard Nixon (Republican) and George McGovern
(Democrat). The researchers found significant positive correlation between the
respondent’s own positions and their rating of their preferred candidate’s
positions, and significant, but weaker negative correlation for the nonpreferred
candidate. These results have been supported many times, during multiple
different elections (Brent & Granberg, 1982; Feldman & Conover, 1983; Judd,
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Kenny, & Krosnick, 1983; Kinder, 1978; Krosnick, 1990). Other projection
findings in the political domain suggest that projection is greater towards
candidates whose policy positions are ambiguous (Kinder, 1978; Granberg &
Brent, 1974).
Research within social psychology suggests that projection is a robust
phenomenon, often operating outside of awareness (Krueger, 2007). It seems to
operate as an anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic, where people use their own
position to rate others, based on shared group membership (DiDonato &
Krueger, 2007). However, when the person is a member of the outgroup,
projection decreases, is non-significant, or reverses, becoming a contrast effect
(Allen & Wilder, 1979; Clement & Krueger, 2002; Robbins & Krueger, 2005;
Wilder, 1984).
Projection is an important phenomenon for understanding impression
formation and vote choice. As mentioned above, the majority of research on
projection in the political domain has used survey research. The major problem
with examining projection in survey data is that the level of correlation between
the voter and candidate may be due to a number of other processes rather than
just projection, namely persuasion, actual shared issue position, and scale usage
(Conover & Feldman, 1982; Krosnick, 2002).
Since the surveys are cross-sectional measures of the respondent’s
position and their perceptions of the candidates are taken concurrently,
persuasion can influence the respondent’s position on the issue. Since the
respondent’s exposure to information about the candidate is difficult to
9
adequately control, prior exposure to a popular candidate could have resulted in
a shift in the respondent’s positions, rather than his or her position influencing
perceptions of the candidate’s position. Additionally, the respondent may be
aware of the candidate’s actual position and actually share it, which would mean
the self-candidate correlation is actual shared issue position. Finally, the
respondent may prefer one end of the scale to the other, which would also lead
to significant self-candidate correlation. However, if this is the case, one would
then expect this bias consistently across target candidates regardless of whether
they were ingroup members or not.
Party Stand. Another source of information that voters have access to
before they know anything specific about the candidate is the stereotypic stand of
the two political parties on the issue. Once voters know which party the
candidate is a member of, they can use their stereotypes about the candidate’s
political party to inform their impressions of the candidate. Research has
demonstrated that political party has a large impact on how voters view the
candidates (Layman & Casey, 2002; Page & Jones, 1979). When people have
information about an individual’s group membership they often use stereotypic
information about that group to form impressions about specific members of the
group (Brewer, 1988; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). This is also true with political
party membership, where information about where the party stands on issues
informs impressions of specific candidates (Golebiowska, 2001). Interestingly,
when partisan information about a candidate is known, peripheral information
such as candidate’s attractiveness is absent in ratings of the candidate (Riggle,
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Ottati, Wyer, Kuklinksi, & Schwartz, 1992). Political cue theory (Conover, 1981;
Conover & Feldman, 1982, 1989; Feldman & Conover, 1983) argues that voters
need to make sense of the world, and they develop schemas about political
parties in order to understand the political world. They then use this information
as an anchor when forming impressions of specific political candidates, which
has been demonstrated by a significant correlation between perceptions of the
issue position of the candidate and the candidate’s political party (Conover &
Feldman, 1982, 1989; Feldman & Conover, 1983). So knowing a candidate is a
Democrat should influence voters’ judgments about where that candidate stands
on issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and the environment, even absent
information about that candidate’s actual position. In fact, party membership is
consistently a significant predictor of voting in both experimental and real world
elections (for a review see Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). However, party membership
is not helpful in distinguishing between candidates during primary elections in
which the candidates are all members of the same party. Additionally, voters still
defect from party even during the general election so party cannot be the whole
story. An examination of ANES data from 1952 to 2004 has shown that on
average, 37% of Americans do not see a difference between the parties during
Presidential elections, while 46% do not see a difference during midterm election
periods (Goodman & Murray, 2007).
Candidate Information. Ideally, information about the candidates would be
the best form of information to use to inform voters’ perceptions of what the
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candidates believe. Unfortunately there are a number of problems inherent in
using information about candidates to form impressions of their positions.
First, information about the candidate is not always relevant to the issue at
hand. One might think that this would not be a problem because voters can
simply disregard irrelevant information. However, information about the
candidate that is not related to the issues will often be used when voters form
impressions of the candidate’s stand on that issue. For example, incidental
similarities between oneself and the candidate, such as sharing the same
birthday, could potentially influence impressions (Burger, Messian, Patel, del
Prado, & Anderson, 2004; Heider, 1958).
The second problem is that it is often difficult to gain access to information
about the candidates’ actual positions. There are a number of reasons that this
is so. Some researchers argue that it is often in the candidates’ best interest not
to make their issue positions clear (Downs, 1957; Page, 1976; Shepsle, 1972).
Additionally, the media devotes little attention to reporting candidate’ positions,
rather it tends to focus on personalities (Graber, 1984; Patterson, 1980). Adding
to the problem, many voters are not motivated or interested to seek out
information about the candidates’ positions (Keeter & Zukin, 1983). Finally,
efficient assimilation of the new information fails to occur when voters have low
motivation, are pressed for time, or have strong prior convictions, and the issues
are often complex in modern politics (Lodge & Taber, 2000). However, while
some ambiguity about candidates’ positions is usually if not always present
(Waldman & Jamieson, 2003) some researchers argue that access to the
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candidates’ positions has become easier to obtain (Shively, 1992). The final
problem is that even when voters do have access to information about the
candidates’ positions they may not use that information accurately, that is, they
may use the information to make inappropriate assessments of the candidates.
Research in person perception has demonstrated that in general people are not
very accurate in their assessments of other people (DePaulo, Kenny, Hoover,
Webb, & Oliver, 1987; Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004; Swann & Gill, 1997).
Research in the political domain has demonstrated that when subjects who have
made a vote choice based on their self-directed perusal of candidate information
are later given all the information about the candidates, 70% of the subjects felt
they made the correct vote choice when there were two candidates and only 31%
of the subjects felt they selected correctly when there were four candidates; that
is, after learning all the candidate information, 30% of voters in two candidate
elections and 69% of voters in four candidate elections felt they had made the
incorrect choice (Lau & Redlawsk, 1997). This is similar to the findings from the
ANES from 1980-2000 (see Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). There are also a number of
biases that can influence judgments, including halo effects (Asch, 1946; Cooper,
1981), in-group favoritism (Brewer, 1979; Turner, Brown, & Tajfel, 1979), and
others.
Endorsement and Popularity
The final type of information used in voting is endorsements from trusted
groups. This type of information is often used as a shortcut to avoid additional
information search. Rather than learning more specific information about the
13
candidate, voters can simply rely on the recommendations of close friends,
trusted experts (Carmines & Kuklinski, 1990; Mondak, 1993; Sniderman, Brody,
& Tetlock, 1991), or trusted groups (Brady & Sniderman, 1985; Lau & Redlawsk,
2001).
If the candidate is the most viable to win, especially when it is a primary
election, voters may again stop further information search or processing (Aldrich,
1980; Bartels, 1988; Lau & Redlawsk, 2001). In fact, voters often vote for a less
preferred candidate because their preferred candidate has no chance to win
(Abramson, Aldrich, Paolino, & Rhode, 1992).
So the information that voters have about the candidates is the most
important factor in their vote choice (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). However, as
mentioned earlier, in the real world the amount, type, and access to information
differs across elections and between voters. This fluctuation in information
makes using survey research to examine the influence of information on
impressions of political candidates very difficult. ANES surveys have on
occasion taken multiple ratings of candidates across the campaign season,
however these are also cross-sectional and the information the respondents had
was not controlled (Krosnick, 2002).
The purpose of the first two studies of this dissertation was to exert
experimental control on the information that the subjects use in their impressions
of the candidates. I used this rigorous control to examine how different types of
individuating information about the candidates affect perceptions of them. The
first study examined how the relevancy and diagnosticity of the individuating
14
candidate information to the impression dimension being judged - in this case
attitudes to specific issues - influenced perceptions of the candidate. The second
study examined how candidate popularity and consistency to the party
stereotype influenced impressions.
The final study of the dissertation returned to the ANES dataset and
examined how self-reported political knowledge influenced voters’ perceptions of
polarization between Democratic and Republican candidates, as well as
correlations between the respondent’s positions and their perceptions of the
candidates from each party.
As mentioned earlier, before voters know anything about a particular
candidate’s stand on an issue, they know their own position and have a
perception about where the two political parties stand. This information can allow
the voter to use the more heuristic based decision models; social identification,
heuristic, and intuitive. However, what happens when voters receive more
information about the candidate? Do voters use the additional individuating
information when updating their impressions or do they continue to rely only on
their own position and that of the party?
One study that examined changes in impressions due to exposure to
information about the candidates found that ambiguous political statements
decreased the impact of judges’ own attitudes on their impressions of same-party
candidates (Pennefather & Park, 2006). Subjects in this study first indicated their
own position on a number of political issues. They were then shown
photographs of middle aged white males and were told they were candidates for
15
political office. Names and political party were also given for each candidate.
Subjects then reported where they perceived each of the candidates stood on the
political issues they had earlier reported their own stand on. Next the subjects
received short political statements from each candidate. These statements were
designed to be undiagnostic about the candidates’ specific stance on the issues,
while appearing to be informative. For example:
Our country is the economic power-house of the world. We need leaders who will
continue to carry on this tradition. Michael Larson will ensure that our country’s
economy remains strong and competitive. He understands the necessity of tightening
our country’s borders and increasing national security spending. He is a strong supporter
of our men and women serving overseas. Michael Larson is a leader for today’s world.
The statements were counterbalanced across political party. At the first rating
subjects projected significantly only towards in-group candidates. Once the
subjects received the statements the level of projection towards the in-group
candidates, while remaining significant, decreased. However, the amount of
projection towards the out-group candidates stayed steady at zero. So it appears
that when judging the ingroup party candidates, the subjects incorporated the
ambiguous individuating information, in that they relied less on their own position.
The decrease in ingroup projection raises the question of what in the
statements caused the judges to use self-referent stances on the issues less in
their impression. Was the decrease in the magnitude of projection towards the
in-group candidates due to the relevancy of the information given about the
candidates? If the information was relevant and diagnostic, rather than merely
relevant but undiagnostic, would the judges have used self-referent information
16
even less or is any individuating information about the candidates enough to
decrease the projection effect? That is, does any information about the
candidates “dilute” the effect of party information and self-position (Nisbett,
Zukier, & Lemley, 1981)?
17
Chapter 2:
Study One
The first study of this dissertation examined the influence of the relevancy
and diagnosticity of the information on the use of a voter’s own position to form
their impressions of the candidates (projection), the agreement between the
subjects about the candidates’ positions (consensus), and perceived differences
between Republican and Democrat candidates (polarization). I was interested in
how learning individuating information affected the use of the early heuristic
information (one’s own position and stereotypes about the parties) in forming
impressions of specific candidates.
The subjects first learned basic information about each of the candidates,
a photograph accompanied by their name and political party. After rating the
candidates’ positions on eight political issues, using this basic information, the
subjects read a short statement about each of them. They either learned
information that was irrelevant to judgments about the candidates’ positions
(hobbies, vacations they have taken, favorite song), information that was relevant
but undiagnostic of their position (identical to the general statements used in
Pennefather & Park, 2006; for example: “Michael Larson will ensure that our
country’s economy remains strong and competitive.”), or relevant and diagnostic
(the general statements plus specific issue positions; for example: “Michael
Larson will ensure that our country’s economy remains strong and competitive by
helping large businesses that are the backbone of our economy and making the
recent tax cuts permanent.”). They then re-rated the candidates’ positions on the
18
eight political issues. The ratings made of the candidates’ positions on the issues
as well as the subject’s self-ratings were then used to examine projection,
consensus, and polarization. Possible mediation of these effects by the subject’s
strength of affiliation was also examined.
Projection
As mentioned in the introduction, voters can use a number of different
types of information to form impressions of political candidates. Voters can use
their impressions of the candidate’s political party, specific information about the
candidate, and their own position to form their impression about a political
candidate’s position. Use of one’s own attitude position when forming
impressions about other people is projection, which I examined first. As
mentioned earlier, the majority of research examining projection in the political
domain has relied on survey research, in which it is difficult to conclude that self-
candidate correlations are in fact projection (Krosnick, 2002). In the current
study self-ratings were collected first and the subjects rated previously unknown
candidates to eliminate the possibility of persuasion and actual shared position
effects.
The subjects were expected to project more towards ingroup candidates
than outgroup candidates, replicating previous studies (Allen & Wilder, 1979;
Clement & Krueger, 2002; Wilder, 1984). Additionally, our subjects were
expected to project less once they received additional information about the
candidates. In an earlier study the statements about ingroup candidates that
were relevant to political attitudes, but not diagnostic of the candidate’s position
19
resulted in decreases in projection (Pennefather & Park, 2006). I predicted that
this decrease in projection was due to the relevancy of the information, rather
than the mere presence of individuating information. Since ambiguous candidate
positions lead to greater projection I predicted that projection towards ingroup
candidates would decrease in the two relevant conditions but remain stable in the
irrelevant condition (Kinder, 1978; Granberg & Brent, 1974).
Consensus
Consensus was of interest because it can be used as a measure of the
application of stereotypes about the candidate. Political Cue Theory (Conover,
1981; Conover & Feldman, 1982, 1989; Feldman & Conover, 1983) argues that
stereotypes about the candidate’s political party act as an anchor when judging
the candidate. Additionally, Kenny’s (2004) PERSON model argues that
information shared by judges increases consensus about what the target is like.
This information includes stereotypes about the candidate; schemas about the
candidate’s political party. The schemas about where the political parties stand
on various issues should be similar between voters regardless of their own
political party membership, with the Democratic party consistently seen as liberal
on the issues and Republicans with a more conservative position (Feldman &
Conover, 1983; Hamill, Lodge, & Blake, 1985; Lodge & Hamill, 1986), which
should lead to some degree of agreement about where the candidates stand.
I predicted that learning individuating information about the political
candidates would lead to less use of the subject’s stereotypes of the political
parties when forming impressions of the specific candidates. Since the
20
stereotypes about the parties are highly shared between people, this decrease
should be reflected in a decrease in consensus. However, the decrease for the
subjects who learned relevant-diagnostic information should be the smallest.
This is because the information, while decreasing the use of party stereotype is
accompanied by specific information about the candidates’ actual stands, which
as shared information should lead to more consensus than the irrelevant or
relevant but undiagnostic information.
Polarization
The final process examined in the first study is the polarization of the
positions of the two parties. Polarization is the tendency for voters to see the
Democratic and Republican parties at extreme opposition to one another. For
example, during the Vietnam War hawks and doves exaggerated the extremity of
the other’s view (Dawes, Singer, & Lemons, 1972), with doves believing the
hawks were more in favor of the war than the hawks themselves claimed, and
vice versa. The process of politics itself can also increase polarization. Political
deliberation increases polarization, partially due to deferment to individuals with
extreme views and a desire to demonstrate party loyalty (Sunstein, 2002).
Political primaries lead to polarization, which accelerates during the campaign
season (Raven & Gallo, 1965). In addition to polarization of the candidates’
positions, by extension the voters’ opinions are also polarized due to political
debate between political candidates, which in turn, leads to polarization of public
opinion (Zaller, 1992). Our government’s policy of public decision making also
21
increases polarization, through repeated expression of each parties’ often
diametrically opposed position (Stasavage, 2007).
While this measure does not directly address the use of individuating
information versus heuristics, it does have a number of interesting and
sometimes problematic outcomes. For example, party polarization increases
legislative gridlock (Jones, 2001); believing that legislators on the other side of
the aisle are more opposed to your positions than they actually are makes
compromise much more difficult. Additionally, party polarization decreases split-
ticket voting, party defection, vote swing, and electoral volatility (Brown & Wright,
1992). The prevalence of polarization within politics and the outcomes it
engenders makes it an area of study both interesting and vital.
Both increased relevancy and increased diagnosticity of the information
were predicted to lead to increased polarization of candidates from the
Democratic and Republican Parties. I expected that relevance would increase
the use of the subject’s existing schemas about the position of the candidates’
political parties when forming impressions about their position (Conover, 1981).
Diagnosticity should increase polarization since the information given was
consistent with the positions of each candidate’s party, which by nature are
polarized.
Strength of Affiliation.
One possible mediator of the processes I investigated (projection,
consensus, and polarization) was voters’ strength of affiliation towards their
political party. I predicted that highly affiliated subjects would use their own
22
position more when judging both ingroup (increased projection) and outgroup
(increased contrast) candidates since highly affiliated subjects should be more
likely to incorporate new, stereotypically consistent information into their existing
schemas (stereotypes) of the candidates (Shanteau, 1988).
Another question that this study addressed is how the judges’ strength of
affiliation to their political party moderates consensus. The tendency for strongly
affiliated voters to vote consistently within their party suggests they have a more
social identification style of voting, which means that they should agree about
what the candidates are like more than weakly identified voters. This should
occur because more strongly affiliated judges rely more heavily on beliefs about
what each of the political parties is like when judging what the candidates are like
(Conover, 1981; Sigel, 1964). The influence of affiliation strength on consensus
has not been investigated in any domain, much less within politics, so this
examination should be informative to both social and political psychologists alike.
It is possible that the more strongly affiliated a person is to a group the more they
use stereotypic beliefs about both the in-group and out-group to form
impressions of the members of those groups. If that is so, strongly affiliated
individuals should agree more with one another than less strongly affiliated group
members. This finding, along with the effect of affiliation strength on projection,
would support the argument that more affiliated voters rely more on heuristics –
both their own position and the stereotypic position of each of the parties – when
forming impressions of political candidates.
23
I expected that the subject’s strength of affiliation would increase
polarization. As mentioned above, more affiliated subjects should rely more on
their stereotypes about how each party stands on the issue when forming
impressions of where the candidates stand, often with the two parties opposing
each other (Conover, 1981; Sigel, 1964). This existing schema of the two parties
being opposed to one another should increase polarization of the individual
candidates. Additionally, if the more affiliated subjects use their own impression
more in judging the ingroup candidates (projection) and the subjects are more
extreme on the issues; this should increase the perceived extremity of ingroup
candidates, which in turn will increase polarization.
Method
At pretest subjects rated their own attitudes on eight political issues, as
well as their political party membership, strength of affiliation to their party, level
of political knowledge, and their personalities. At the experimental session the
subjects viewed photographs of 8 political candidates, one half of which were
identified as Republican, and the other half as Democrat. They rated where they
perceived each of the candidates to stand on each of 8 political issues (two
questions per issue). Finally, the subjects were given short statements about
each of the candidates that were either irrelevant to the political issues, were
relevant to political attitudes but undiagnostic of the candidate’s actual position,
or information that was both relevant and diagnostic. Subjects again made
ratings of their perceptions of the candidates’ attitudes.
24
Subjects
119 subjects were recruited from the Introductory Psychology subject pool
at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the Psychology Paid subject pool.
Subjects were recruited based on their responses to the political membership
item on the pre-test questionnaire. 61 self-identified Democrats and 58 self-
identified Republicans were recruited to participate. The subjects were randomly
assigned to one of three experimental conditions (irrelevant, relevant-
undiagnostic, or relevant-diagnostic).
Materials
Questionnaires. The core ratings were composed of 10 bipolar
personality trait rating items, 16 attitude items, a bipolar measure of liberalism-
conservatism, and a number of other ratings detailed below. The personality
items consisted of two bipolar Likert scales for each of the Big-Five personality
dimensions (Norman, 1963). The scales for extraversion were extroverted at one
end and shy at the other, and reserved-outgoing; those for agreeableness were
disagreeable-agreeable and good natured-irritable, the two conscientiousness
measures were trustworthy-untrustworthy and irresponsible-responsible,
neuroticism were self-doubting-self-confident and self-assured-insecure, and for
culture they were knowledgeable-uninformed and unintelligent-intelligent (see
Appendix E).
Attitudes were measured using two statements on eight political issues.
The eight issues were: abortion, taxation, immigration, gay rights, gun laws,
national defense, health care, and energy. For each issue there was one
25
statement expressing a conservative viewpoint and one statement expressing a
liberal viewpoint. For example, the liberal abortion statement was: “I support a
woman’s right to abortion on demand.” The conservative abortion statement
was: “I view abortion as the taking of a human life.” When indicating their own
position the subjects rated how much they agreed with each statement (Appendix
E). When rating the target candidates the subjects indicated where they perceive
the candidate to stand on the issue (Appendix F).
Overall political ideology was measured using a bipolar measure (see
Appendix E). The subjects indicated where they fell along the liberal to
conservative spectrum as well as where they perceived each of the target
candidates stood.
Targets. The targets consisted of 8 black and white photographs of
middle-aged white males in suits and ties. The photos were cropped so that only
the face and upper torso was visible (Appendix A). Each photograph was
randomly assigned a name with 4 identified as Republican and 4 as Democratic
candidates. Additionally, the political party identification and the political
statements attached to each photograph were counterbalanced across subjects,
so that the photographs that were assigned to Democrats in Set-A were assigned
to Republicans in Set-B, and those assigned to Republicans in Set-A were
assigned to Democrats in Set-B.
Experimental Conditions. In the second wave of impression formation, the
previously presented target information (including the candidate’s photograph,
name, and party affiliation) were paired with a statement about the candidate.
26
Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions, each
of which received different statements about the political candidates (see
Appendices B, C, and D). While the target photograph was counterbalanced
across subjects the names and statements were consistently paired with a
candidate from a specific political party. For example, all the statements below
were consistently paired with the candidate William McCartell, a Democrat, while
the photograph accompanying the name and statement was counterbalanced.
The irrelevant statements consisted of four pieces of information that were
irrelevant to forming impressions of the candidates’ political views. For each
candidate the statement contained their favorite song, favorite quote, last
vacation, and a hobby (Appendix B). For example:
William McCartell is an avid golfer and also enjoys refurbishing antique furniture. His favorite song is “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen. His last vacation was scuba-diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. William McCartell’s favorite quote is “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do” by inventor Henry Ford. The relevant-undiagnostic statements contained ambiguous statements
about the candidates’ political attitudes (see Appendix C). These statements
were designed to give the impression of containing attitude information but were
actually not informative. For example:
Our nation needs to re-examine its priorities. We are at a cross-road in our history and need a leader with the vision to guide us to a better future. William McCartell is the leader to do it. He has plans to refocus our country’s priorities on job creation, education, and health care. William McCartell, defending America.
The relevant-diagnostic statements in fact gave information about where
the candidates stood on the political issues, which was always stereotypically
27
consistent with the candidate’s stated political party membership. Therefore all
the politically relevant diagnostic information given to the subjects about the
candidates was consistent with the positions that are stereotypically associated
with the candidates’ parties. These statements were identical to the relevant-
undiagnostic statements except they included two unambiguous position
statements (Appendix D). For example:
Our nation needs to re-examine its priorities. We are at a cross-road in our history and need a leader with the vision to guide us to a better future. William McCartell is the leader to do it. He has plans to refocus our country’s priorities on job creation, education, and health care. He plans to increase Medicare coverage, and has outlined a universal health care plan. He will focus on keeping our families and our country safe, by bringing estranged nations such as Syria and Iran to the bargaining table. William McCartell, defending America.
As with the first rating period, during the second rating period, the
photographs, names, and political party affiliation were present in the upper left
corner of each page. However, the political statement was also present at the
top of each page to insure the proper target was being judged, as well as
allowing the subject to refer back to the information contained in the statements
(Appendix F).
Procedure
Pretest. Prior to recruitment, the subjects completed a pretest
questionnaire. The questionnaire included a question about which political party
the subject belonged to, which was used for recruitment. The questionnaire also
included the personality, attitude, and liberal-conservative ideology measures
mentioned above. The subjects answered these items about their own
28
personality, political attitudes, and ideology. In addition, the subjects rated their
own affiliation to their self-identified political party, their level of political
knowledge, and their interest in politics.
Experimental Session. Upon arrival at the laboratory, subjects were
informed that they were taking part in a study on the formation of impressions of
political candidates. The experimental session took place in an open room with
individual carrels for the subjects.
During the experimental session, the subjects rated the target candidates
at two times (detailed below). These ratings consisted of the personality,
attitude, and liberal-conservative ideology measures mentioned above. For this
task the subjects indicated their perceptions of each of the candidates’
personalities, political attitudes, and ideology.
In the first wave of impression formation the subjects formed impressions
of the candidates using only photographs of the targets and their name and
political party. The targets were presented one at a time to the subjects. During
the rating period the photograph, name, and party of the target was present on
each page of ratings for that target. This insured that the subject was making the
ratings for the correct target.
Once the subjects were seated the experimenter handed out the first
booklet, which contained the photograph, name, and political party of the target
candidates. The subjects were told:
You will now be forming impressions of the eight political candidates. Inside of the booklet is a page with the photograph, name, and political party of each of the candidates. In a moment you will be told to flip to the first page and form an impression of the candidate. You will have 15
29
seconds to study each page and form an impression of the candidate contained on that page. You will be told when the 15 seconds has elapsed and be instructed to turn to the next candidate. Once you have formed impressions of all the candidates you will rate each of them on a number of personality and political attitude items. Please turn to the first candidate now.
After 15 seconds the subjects were told to flip to the next candidate. This
continued until the subjects had viewed all eight candidates.
After completing the impression formation task the subjects completed the
first set of ratings about all of the candidates. The experimenter handed out the
second booklet which contained the first target questionnaire. The subjects were
then told:
You will now make ratings of each of the candidates’ political attitudes and personalities. On each page of the questionnaire are the photograph, name, and political party of the candidate you are currently rating. There are two pages for each candidate. You will have 15 minutes to complete this questionnaire. Once you have completed the questionnaire please put it face down in front of you. We will move on to the next phase once the 15 minutes have elapsed, so if you complete the questionnaire before the 15 minutes have elapsed please sit quietly. You may now begin.
After completing the first set of ratings the experimenter collected the
rating booklet. The subjects then completed the second impression formation
task. This task was similar to the first impression task, except that in addition to
the photographs, names, and political party of each target candidate the booklet
contained the statements about the candidates which differed depending on the
condition the subject was assigned to. The subjects had 1 minute to read
through each of the statements, with the experimenter telling them when to
advance on to the next target. One minute allowed the subjects enough time to
comfortably read through each statement. The subjects were told:
30
You will now be reading statements about each of the candidates. On each page of this booklet are the photographs, names, and political parties of each of the candidates that you viewed earlier, as well as a short statement about each of the candidates. You will have one minute to read through each statement and view the photograph. You will be told when to advance to the next page. You will then be asked to re-rate the individuals using your new impressions of them. Please turn to the first candidate.
After the subjects completed the second impression formation task they re-rated
the candidates, based on the new information they had learned about them.
They were told:
You will now make a final rating of each of the candidates. The questionnaire is very similar to the previous one. In addition to the photograph of the candidate at the top of the page, the statement about that candidate will also be present so that you can refer back to it to make your ratings if needed. Do not worry about how you previously rated each individual when making your ratings, you will be using new information to form your impression so do not be concerned if you are rating them the same or differently than the time before. You will again have 15 minutes to complete this task. Once you have completed the questionnaire please place it face down in front of you.
Once all the subjects had completed the task they were debriefed, thanked for
their time, and excused.
Results
The purpose of Study One was to examine the effect of various types of
information on impressions of political candidates’ attitudes. I examined how the
diagnosticity and relevance of information about political candidates influenced
the extent to which the judges used their own attitudes to form impressions
(projection), their level of agreement about the candidates (consensus), and how
differently they rated Democrat and Republican candidates from each other
(polarization).
31
Strength of Affiliation
Before examining the impression variable I will discuss the results of the
subjects’ self reported strength of affiliation to their own party. In general the
distribution of strength of party affiliation was normal (Figure 1). Additionally,
Democrat subjects reported higher levels of affiliation than did Republican
candidates. t(1,119) = 2.89, p < .01 (Means: Democrats = 4.77, Republicans
4.12).
Figure 1. Affiliation. Frequency Distribution of subjects’ self-rated
strength of affiliation to their political party.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Subject Self-Rated Affiliation Strength
Number of Subjects
Projection
Overview. I predicted that projection would be greater to the ingroup
candidates (Allen & Wilder, 1979; Clement & Krueger, 2002; Wilder, 1984), and
that projection would decrease at Time 2, after the subjects learned information
about the candidates, however the more ambiguous the statements were the
smaller the decrease.
32
Analyses. The projection results were calculated using a multi-level
regression. For the first level, a regression was conducted for each subject,
predicting ratings of the eight target candidates’ positions across the 16 attitude
items and across the two time periods (for a total of 256 “observations” for each
regression). The first level of the regression included all the within subject
variables with the following model:
AR = β0 + β1S + β2P + β3T + β4S*P + β5S*T + β6P*T + β7S*P*T + ε
AR represents the judge’s rating of the candidate on an attitude item, with self-
rating for that item represented by S. P is a contrast coded variable indicating
whether the candidate is a member of the judge’s political party (-1 = Outgroup
and +1 = Ingroup). The time point (T) when the rating was made is denoted by -1
as Time1 and +1 as Time 2. Finally, all the two-way and the three-way
interactions are included.
These regressions resulted in a beta for each subject for each of the
factors in the model. The second level analyses regressed the resulting slopes
onto the two contrast coded experimental condition variables (Irrelevant vs. the
average of the two relevant conditions, and Relevant-Diagnostic vs. Relevant-
Undiagnostic), a contrast code of the judge’s political party (-1 = Democrat and
+1 = Republican), the mean deviated rating of the judge’s strength of political
affiliation and all the interactions1.
Results. The betas were analyzed to examine projection effects,
specifically the betas that included the subjects’ self-ratings, specifically β1, β4,
1 Note: Target-Set (Set-A versus Set-B) did not interact with self-rating or interaction containing
self-rating and thus Target-Set was excluded from the analysis.
33
β5, and β7. I expected both Democrat and Republican judges to show identical
projection effects specifically that β1 would not depend on Self-Party, which was
indeed the case, t(1,109) = -.66, p = .51.
Testing β1 (the effect of self-rating) against zero, the judges used their
own political attitudes when forming impressions of the candidates’ attitudes, t(1,
109) = 8.25, p < .0001. This result supports the first hypothesis that the subjects
would project their own attitudes onto the candidates.
Examining the beta of the Self-rating X Ingroup/Outgroup factor (β4)
projection depended on whether the candidate was a member of the judge’s
political party or not, t(1,109) = 6.49, p < .0001, with greater projection towards
ingroup candidates. The two-way interaction depended upon the judge’s
strength of political affiliation, t(1,109) = 2.27, p = .03, with the ingroup-outgroup
projection difference being greater for more affiliated subjects (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Projection. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients between
subjects’ self-ratings and their ratings of the targets, by ingroup/outgroup
and affiliation (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation).
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Lo Affiliation Hi Affiliation
Projection
Ingroup
Outgroup
34
I predicted that once the subjects received additional information about the
candidates they would decrease the amount of projection. Testing the beta from
Self-rating X Time (β5) against zero, this did not appear to be the case, t(1,109) =
1.49, p = .14. However, the predicted three-way interaction of projection, time,
and ingroup/outgroup was significant, t(1,109) = -2.69, p < .01 (see Figure 3).
Examining the simple changes over time for outgroup, projection increased at
Time 2, t(1,109) = -2.68, p < .01, with significant contrast (negative projection)
towards the outgroup candidates at Time 1, t(1,109) = -2.21, p = .03, and no
projection at Time 2, p = .39. Examining the simple change over time for the
Ingroup there was no change in projection over time, t(1,109) = -1.41, p = .16.
Projection towards the ingroup candidates was significant at both Time 1,
t(1,109) = 11.21, p <.0001 and Time 2, t(1,109)= 6.94, p < .0001. While the
mean level of projection towards the ingroup decreased between Time 1 and
Time 2, this difference was not statistically significant, something that had been
predicted.
The main prediction was that projection would decrease in the two
relevant conditions but remain stable in the irrelevant condition. However,
testing the Self X Time beta (β5S*T), neither the irrelevant versus the two
relevant contrast, t(1,109) = -0.06, p = .95, nor the relevant-undiagnostic versus
relevant-diagnostic contrast, t(1,109) = -1.18, p = .24 significantly moderated
changes across time in projection.
35
Figure 3. Projection. Unstandardized Regression Coefficients between
subjects’ self-ratings and their ratings of the targets, by time and
ingroup/outgroup.
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Time 1 Time 2
Projection
Outgroup
Ingroup
In Pennefather and Park (2006) the decrease in projection was only
significant for ingroup candidates, however testing the Self X Time beta (β5S*T)
for only the ingroup candidates neither the irrelevant versus the two relevant
contrast, t(1,109) = 0.59, p = .55, nor the relevant-undiagnostic versus relevant-
diagnostic contrast, t(1,109) = 0.13, p = .90 significantly moderated the decrease
in projection for ingroup candidates with additional information. Finally,
examining just the relevant-diagnostic condition the Self X Time interaction was
not significant, t(1,39) = -.84, p = .41. In general, neither the relevancy nor the
diagnosticity of the information moderated projection. The sole exception was
that the more strongly affiliated the subjects were to their political party, the more
they projected towards both ingroup and outgroup candidates when the
information was irrelevant, t(1, 109) = 2.43, p = .017.
36
As part of our analyses there were a number of non-projection effects.
These effects were found examining the betas that did not include the subjects’
self-ratings, specifically β0, β2, β3, and β6. There was a significant main effect of
time (β3), t(1, 109) = 2.53, p = .01, wherein all the candidates were rated as more
liberal at Time 2. Additionally, examining the intercept beta (β0) there was a main
effect of the subject’s strength of affiliation, t(1,109) = 3.11, p < .01, with more
affiliated subjects rating the candidates as more liberal. Again examining the
intercept beta, there was a main effect of the first contrast coded condition
variable, t(1,109) = 2.20, p = .03, with the subjects in the two relevant conditions
rating all the targets as more liberal than subjects in the irrelevant condition. This
effect was due to the content of the statements, with no actual political
information contained in the irrelevant statements, all of the statements in the
relevant condition may have been written as more liberal. There was also a
significant interaction of the subject’s political party and target party, t(1,109) =
16.78, p < .0001, with Democrat subjects seeing their ingroup members as more
liberal. The target party by time beta (β6) interacted with the subject’s party,
t(1,109) = -3.16, p < .01, with the Democrats seeing their ingroup candidates as
even more liberal at Time 2. Again this effect was due to the content of the
statements. This three-way interaction was further moderated by the second
contrast coded condition, t(1,109) = -2.51, p = .01, with Democrats in the
relevant-undiagnostic condition seeing their ingroup as even more liberal at Time
2 than Time 1, than the Democrats in the relevant-diagnostic condition. This
interaction was moderated by the subject’s strength of affiliation, t(1,109) = 2.00,
37
p = .05, with low affiliated Democrats showing the above effect more strongly
than highly affiliated Democrats.
These patterns of findings indicate that in general neither the diagnosticity
nor relevance of information influenced the extent to which the judges used their
own positions to form impressions of the political candidates in this study.
Rather, the judges used their own positions more when making judgments about
ingroup candidates than outgroup candidates and this did not depend on the
relevancy or diagnosticity of the information they learned about the candidates.
In a previous study (Pennefather & Park, 2006) the amount of projection towards
the ingroup candidates decreased after receiving relevant-undiagnostic
information, while in this study projection towards the ingroup did not change
over time. Additionally, there was significant contrast towards the outgroup at
Time 1, which became zero at Time 2.
Consensus
Overview. Next, the influence of the different levels of information on
agreement between the subjects about what the candidates were like was
examined. The first prediction was that the subjects would show significant
agreement about the candidates’ attitudes. More importantly it was predicted
that individuating information would decrease the use of heuristics, which are
shared by subjects, resulting in a decrease in the level of consensus about the
candidates’ attitudes. Thus, I predicted that the level of consensus about the
candidates would decrease at Time 2 once the subjects learned more
individuating information about the candidates and relied less on their
38
stereotypes about the parties. The decrease in consensus should be less when
the information was diagnostic of actual position, since the shared information in
the relevant condition was more predictive of position it may have been used
more than the information in the irrelevant condition, compensating somewhat for
the decreased use of the party stereotype. Schemas that voters have about the
political parties are the most powerful in politics (Conover & Feldman, 1986,
1989; Hamill, Lodge, & Blake, 1985; Nicholson, 2005), which may result in high
agreement before the individuating information is learned.
Analysis. The consensus analyses examined the extent to which the
judges agreed about what the candidates were like. The consensus results were
calculated first using BLOCKO (Kenny, 1983). BLOCKO is a program for the
analysis of dyadic block designs. The current study was a half-block design in
which measurements were taken only from members of one group (judge-
subjects) about their impressions of the other (target-candidates). BLOCKO
allowed us to decompose the variance in ratings into three components: target,
judge, and relationship.
Target effects measure the average response for a target across judges,
that is how much of the total variance in ratings can be attributed to the targets
being rated. For example, Candidate X is seen by others as strongly liberal.
Thus target effects are a measure of the agreement between the judges about
what the targets are like, so in the current study I use absolute target variance as
the measure of consensus.
39
The judge effects are the measure of the rater’s general response across
targets for a particular item. For example, Judge A may rate the candidates as
being strongly liberal. This consistent judgment of others as strongly liberal could
be due to a measurement artifact, that is, Judge A tends to use the high end of
the scale. More interestingly, judge effects could be a measure of a person’s
psychological processing of other people.
Relationship effects measure the interaction of judge and target effects.
The relationship effect is the idiosyncratic perception that a judge has about a
particular target. Thus, the relationship effect operates at the dyadic level
between a single judge and a single target, while judge and target effects are the
average effect across raters and those being rated.
Judges sharing party, condition, and target-set were combined into
groups, with between eight and eleven judges in each of the 12 party by
condition by target-set groups. The variance decomposition, analyzing party and
condition differences in consensus was performed. For each group the level of
absolute stable variance due to target (consensus) was calculated. The variance
decomposition was performed on eight issue constructs; each of these
constructs was composed of the two attitude items that address the same issue.
After this group level analysis the amount of consensus due to each judge was
calculated using a jack-knifing technique (see Park & Judd, 1989), whereby each
judge was left out of the BLOCKO analysis and the amount of absolute stable
target variance remaining was included in the following formula to find the level of
target variance due to each judge (for a group with 11 judges): Vi = (11 * V11) –
40
(10 * V11-1), where Vi is the ith subject’s psuedovalue for a given variance. V11 is
the variance estimate from the full sample (one Subject Party X Condition X
Target Set group at one Time, in this case having 11 judges) and V11-1 is the
variance estimate of the sample excluding that subject’s data. I ended up with a
measure of each subject’s individual contribution to his or her group’s consensus
for each of the eight attitude constructs at both Time 1 and Time 2. The eight
scores at each time were then averaged to create a single measure of attitude
consensus at Time 1 and Time 2.
These consensus scores were regressed on the two contrast-coded
Information Condition variables (Irrelevant vs. the two relevant conditions, and
Relevant-Diagnostic vs. Relevant-Undiagnostic), Rating Period (-1 = Time 1 and
+1 = Time 2), Subject Party (+1 = Democrat and -1 = Republican), Target Set,
and all the interactions.
Results. I predicted that the overall level of consensus would differ from
zero, indicating that there was agreement overall about the candidates’ attitudes,
which was indeed the case at both Time 1, F(1,120) = 7.16, p < .0001 and Time
2, F(1,120) = 6.00, p < .0001 (see Figure 4). Next, the prediction that
individuating information would lead to a decrease in consensus was not
supported, F(1,120) = 1.70, p = .19. Neither relevancy (Condition 2 contrast),
F(1,120) = 2.29, p = .13 nor diagnosticity (Condition 1 contrast), F(1,120) = 0.79,
p = .38, were significant. Therefore the shared stereotypes about the positions of
each political party on the issues lead to agreement about the candidates’
positions when no individuating information was known, which did not change
41
when they learned individuating information about each candidate. Increased
relevance and diagnosticity of the information did not, in general influence
agreement more than the irrelevant information did.
Figure 4. Consensus. Average agreement between subjects’ ratings of the
targets on the 16 attitude items by time and information condition.
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
Irrelevant Rel-Undiag Rel-Diag
Information Condition
Average Relative Partner Variance
Time 1
Time 2
However, there was a significant interaction between the subject’s party
and the first condition contrast-code F(1,97) = 4.29, p = .04, and a marginal
interaction between the subject’s party and the second condition contrast F(1,97)
= 3.70, p = .06. While the Democrat subjects in all the information condition had
equally higher levels of agreement than Republican subjects, this difference was
less in the relevant-diagnostic condition (see Figure 5). The interaction of the
subjects’ party and first condition contrast depended on time, F(1,97) = 3.66, p =
.06. Examining simple changes in the consensus between Time1 and Time 2 for
each condition, the change was significant for the subjects in the relevant-
42
undiagnostic condition, F(1,37) = 4.34, p = .04, but not for the irrelevant
condition, p = .78, nor the relevant-diagnostic, p = .53.
Figure 5. Consensus. Average agreement between subjects’ ratings of the
targets on the 16 attitude items by subjects’ political party and information
condition.
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
Irrelevant Rel-Undiag Rel-Diag
Information Condition
Average Relative Partner Variance
Dem Subjects
Rep Subjects
Additionally, there was a main effect of target set, with subjects who
received the first target set agreeing more about what the candidates were like,
F(1,97) = 12.44, p < .001. The target set effect was moderated by time, F(1,97)
= 4.42, p = .04, with the difference in consensus between the target sets being
larger at Time 2.
One possibility for this difference due to target set is that in the first set the
Democrat candidates all appeared younger than the Republicans, while in the
second set this was reversed. This unintentional difference could have resulted
in the use of two different stereotypes when judging the candidates. The first
43
stereotype is the expected one that Democrat candidates are more liberal. The
second stereotype is that older people are more conservative. In the first target
set both the young-liberal and Democrat-liberal stereotypes and the older-
conservative and Republican conservative stereotypes were going in the same
direction. In the second target set the two stereotypes were working against
each other. If the subjects who received the second target set used the age and
political party stereotypes to different degrees the amount of agreement about
the candidates in that condition would suffer, leading to a target set difference.
Polarization
Overview. As mentioned in the introduction there are a number of
processes that lead to seeing the candidates from the two parties as holding
more extreme attitudes, or polarization. I predicted that both the diagnosticity
and the relevance of the information that our subjects received about the
candidates would influence how polarized they saw the candidates. I predicted
that receiving information about the candidates that was relevant to their attitude
positions should lead to increases in perceived polarization. This should have
been especially true when the information was diagnostic of the candidate’s
actual position (as well as party consistent), which reinforced the existing
stereotypes about each of the parties’ positions. Specifically, subjects in the two
relevant conditions should see the candidates as more polarized than the
subjects in the irrelevant condition. Additionally, the subjects in the relevant-
diagnostic condition should see more polarization than those subjects in the
relevant-undiagnostic condition.
44
Analysis. The polarization results were calculated using a General Linear
Model (GLM) analysis. First, the attitude items were reverse scored so that they
were all scored higher for the liberal end. For each subject the average of the 16
attitude items for each target candidate was calculated. The average of these
ratings across time and target party were calculated, which resulted in four
scores: Democrat Targets-Time 1, Democrat Targets-Time 2, Republican
Targets-Time 1, and Republican Targets-Time 2. These four scores were then
included as repeated measures in a GLM, with the two contrast-coded
Information Condition variables (Irrelevant vs. the two relevant conditions, and
Relevant-Diagnostic vs. Relevant-Undiagnostic), Subject Party (+1 = Democrat
and -1 = Republican), subject’s strength of affiliation, and all the interactions as
predictors in the model.
Results. The was a significant main effect for target party, F(1,108) =
285.02, p < .0001, indicating that the subjects perceived polarization between the
Democrat and Republican target candidates. This effect was not moderated by
the subject’s political party membership, F(1,108) = 2.72, p = .10, indicating that
both Democrat and Republican subjects perceived the same amount of
polarization, though directionally the Democrat subjects showed more
polarization. The target party effect was moderated by time, F(1,108) = 9.18, p <
.01, with less perceived polarization once the judges learned information about
the candidates. This two-way interaction of time and target party was further
moderated by a three-way interaction with the second condition contrast,
45
F(1,108) = 5.44, p = .02 (see Figure 6). To better examine this effect I ran
separate analyses examining the simple change in polarization for each
Figure 6. Polarization. Average rating of Democrat targets on the 16
attitude issues minus the average rating of the Republican targets by time
and information condition.
Polarization by Time and Condition
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
Irrelevant Rel-Undiag Rel-Diag
Condition
Average Democrat Minus
Republican Rating
Time 1
Time 2
condition. The decrease in polarization at Time 2 was significant for subjects in
the relevant-undiagnostic condition, F(1,36) = 3.94, p < .001, and marginal for the
irrelevant condition, F(1,37) = 1.87, p = .07. However there was not a significant
decrease in the relevant-diagnostic condition with more information, F(1,35) = -
.01, p =.99. As predicted when subjects learned either irrelevant or relevant-
undiagnostic information they decreased their perceptions of polarization while
subjects who learned relevant-diagnostic information did not, demonstrating that
the diagnosticity of the information influences how extreme candidates from the
two parties are seen. There was a significant three-way interaction between
target party, subject’s strength of affiliation, and the subject’s political party,
46
F(1,108) = 4.82, p = .03. While highly affiliated subjects from both parties
showed equally high degrees of polarization, the low affiliated Republicans
showed less polarization than low affiliated Democrats (see Figure 7). Finally,
there was a main effect of Time, F(1,108) = 6.53, p = .01, with subjects
perceiving all of the targets as generally more liberal at Time 2. It could be that
the statements were all written to liberally, even those about the Republican
candidates.
Figure 7. Polarization. Average rating of Democrat targets on the 16
attitude issues minus the average rating of the Republican targets by
subject’s political party membership and strength of affiliation (+1 and -1
standard deviation).
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Lo Aff Hi Aff
Average Democrat Minus Average
Republican
Dem Subjects
Rep Subjects
While the predicted overall polarization difference between the two
relevant conditions and the irrelevant condition was not found, as predicted, the
subjects in the relevant-diagnostic condition did not decrease the extent to which
they polarized the candidates, while subjects in the other two conditions did.
47
Discussion
Study One was designed to investigate how relevant and diagnostic
information influenced impression formation. I expected that any individuating
information, be it relevant and/or diagnostic would decrease the relationship
between the subject’s own positions and those of the candidates, specifically
ingroup candidates. This was not the case; neither type of information
significantly changed the extent to which the subjects projected. The subjects
did project more towards the ingroup than towards the outgroup. Also, when the
subjects learned more about the ingroup candidates than merely their name,
political party, and a photograph the amount the subjects projected decreased
directionally, but not significantly. On the other hand, when the subjects learned
only the basic information about the outgroup candidates the subjects contrasted
their positions from their perceptions of the outgroup candidates’ positions
(reverse projection), but after learning individuating information they no longer
projected in either direction.
In a previous study (Pennefather & Park, 2006) subjects decreased their
projection towards ingroup candidates after learning relevant-undiagnostic
information about them, however, in the current study projection towards the
ingroup did not change significantly, even when only the relevant-undiagnostic
condition was examined. The only differences between the current study’s
relevant-undiagnostic condition and the previous study was the collection of self-
ratings of the attitude measures at pre-test rather than during the first part of the
48
experimental session and the information was not counter-balanced across party.
Why the decrease in projection did not attain significance, and differed from the
previous investigation will need further examination.
Kenny’s (2004) PERSON model argues that increases in shared
knowledge about other people increases agreement between raters.
Directionally, the findings supported our predictions that when subjects had very
little information, which included party membership of the candidates, they would
rely more on the stereotypes of each of the parties. While overall the decrease
in consensus was not significant at Time 2, it did decrease significantly in the
relevant-undiagnostic condition. In the current study Democrats agreed with one
another more than the Republicans regardless of the type of information, but less
so when the information was relevant and diagnostic. These results suggest that
Democrats have a stronger shared stereotype, about where each of the parties
stand on the issues, or use the stereotype more. However, when the information
was relevant and diagnostic it appears to have increased the use of the
stereotypes by the Republican subjects. The fact that the Republicans agreed
less about the candidates could be due to the fact they were less strongly
affiliated to their party, t(1,119) = 2.89, p < .01 (Means: Democrats = 4.77,
Republicans 4.12) and less politically knowledgeable, t(1,119) = 2.33, p = .05
(Means: Democrats = 4.05. Republicans = 3.59) than the Democrat subjects.
As expected the subjects perceived the candidates from the two parties as
less extreme once they learned more information about them. This was
expected because prior to receiving the information at Time 2, the subjects were
49
relying more heavily on their stereotypes about each party, which by nature were
polarized. The prediction that the diagnosticity of the information would also
influence polarization was supported, with decreases in polarization at Time 2 for
the subjects who learned relevant-undiagnostic and irrelevant (marginal)
information, but not for those who learned relevant-diagnostic information.
Interestingly, Democrat subjects directionally perceived more polarization than
did Republican subjects. It is possible that this trend is due to Democrats being
more numerous on campus, and thus more powerful, resulting in more perceived
polarization by Democrat subjects (Ebenbach & Keltner, 1998).
It appears that the subjects were using the information rationally in their
perceptions of candidate extremity. The relevant-diagnostic information was
designed to express party consistent positions, which as mentioned above are
the nature of the issues. This information would reinforce existing party
stereotypes, which resulted in no change in polarization between Time 1 when
they were relying heavily on the party stereotypes and Time 2, when they learned
the diagnostic information, which was consistent with the stereotype. It is
interesting however, that polarization decreased in the other two conditions,
though only marginally in the irrelevant condition. It seems that individuating
information, when it does not specifically reinforce the political party stereotypes
decreases the use of the polarized party stereotypes. The fact that the decrease
was significant for the irrelevant-diagnostic condition could mean that the
ambiguous nature of the statements resulted in perceptions of the candidates as
more moderate. This would support previous work that suggests that ambiguity
50
is the best way to capture moderate and independent voters, especially when the
candidate’s position is substantially different from the median public position
(Campbell, 1983; Kinder, 1978).
One question these results raise is: how does the consistency of the
information influence the impressions? In none of the conditions in Study One
did the subjects learn information that ran counter to their existing stereotypes
about the candidates. In fact, in the relevant-diagnostic condition the information
reinforced the stereotype. The next study examines the impact of consistency on
impressions of political candidates.
51
Chapter 3:
Study Two
In Study One the influence that different levels of diagnostic information
have on political perception was examined. In that study all the politically
relevant information given to the subjects about the candidates was consistent
with the positions that are stereotypically associated with the candidates’ parties.
While many political candidates do toe the party line on most issues, it is also the
case that there are candidates that express views that are inconsistent with the
party norm (Kam, 2005). An interesting question is how voters deal with
inconsistent information about political candidates?
Consistency
A prime example of a candidate that expressed party-inconsistent
attitudes was the former Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani,
during his political career expressed liberal views on abortion, gay marriage, and
gun control. Interestingly, once he announced his candidacy for president in
2007 he quickly became a favorite for the Republican ticket. This reaction could
be expected from fiscal Republicans who may not care as much about social
issues; however, even strong social conservatives like Pat Roberts backed Mr.
Giuliani. How do political party members deal with party-inconsistent information
about their candidates?
Social psychologists have long been interested in stereotype consistency
and its effect on various impression formation processes. Social psychologists
have examined the effects of stereotype consistent and inconsistent information
52
on judgments of the group and individuals within the group (Krueger & Rothbart,
1988; Park & Rothbart, 1982). Additionally, researchers have examined the
influence of inconsistency on memory, in some cases finding greater recall for
inconsistent behaviors (Hastie & Kumar, 1979) and in others finding greater
recall for stereotype-consistent events (Rothbart, Evans, & Fulero, 1979). While
these findings seem at odds, Srull, Lichtenstein, and Rothbart (1985) found that
while recall for inconsistent behaviors was greater for individuals and meaningful
groups, the reverse was true for meaningless groups. Moreno and Bodenhausen
(1999) argue that in the face of inconsistent information people typically adopt a
defensive stance to protect their stereotypes about the group, but this can be
moderated if they are motivated to be accurate.
Work in the political domain supports Hastie and Kumar’s (1979), finding
that when the target person’s ideology differed from their own, people
remembered more inconsistent than consistent information, however when the
target had the same ideology as the subject recall for inconsistent information did
not differ from that for consistent information (Wänke & Wyer, 1996). In a series
of elaborate mock election studies Lau and Redlawsk (2006) showed that their
subjects were “flummoxed” when confronted by a counter-stereotypic outgroup
candidate and engaged in more effortful processing, using the rational-
calculation based forms of vote decision making. However, Lau and Redlawsk
(2006) did not examine the influence of a counter-stereotypic ingroup candidate.
53
Popularity
During general elections, when the choice is between a candidate from
one’s own party and a candidate from the outgroup party I would argue that
voters, are motivated less by accuracy, and more by a desire to protect their
social identities as members of the party (Moreno & Bodenhausen, 1999). One
reason voters may be less accuracy motivated could be the “horse race”
coverage of the elections. Bartels (1988) states that “reporting focuses on who’s
ahead, who’s gaining ground, and who was first across the finish line. The horse
race only incidentally touches on matters of political substance”. Research has
supported this, with more media coverage of competition than any other form of
information, such as the candidates’ political positions (Robinson & Sheehan,
1983). This type of coverage influences the perceptions of the public about the
candidates, for example voters’ support for candidates is moderated by their
expectations of that candidate’s chance to win (Bartels, 1988). One prime
example of this effect was Jimmy Carter, who was a virtual unknown before the
primaries began, but with a good showing in the first caucus gained enough
momentum to gain the nomination and eventually the Presidency.
As mentioned in the introduction one type of information that voters use to
form impressions of political candidates are endorsements by trusted groups
(Brady & Sniderman, 1985; Lau & Redlawsk, 2001) or individuals (Carmines &
Kuklinski, 1990; Mondak, 1993; Sniderman, Brody, & Tetlock, 1991). How does
knowledge that the candidate is supported by a majority of voters from ones’ own
political party influence how people use inconsistent information in their
54
impressions? What would happen with a candidate that expressed inconsistent
attitudes on some of the issues; would it matter if he was popular or not? I
would expect that an inconsistent but popular ingroup candidate would increase
the voter’s use of the party stereotype. Voter should also rely on the
endorsements of their ingroup, making it even less likely that inconsistent
information will influence impressions. The current study also examined possible
mechanisms by which the influence of inconsistent information about candidates
is minimized.
One possible way to deal with inconsistent information is simply to ignore
it. Recent examinations have found that people often do ignore inconsistent
information (Erber & Fiske, 1984). If subjects do ignore inconsistent information
about the candidates, they should exhibit decreased recall of the inconsistent
statements. Research in political science on memory and popularity has shown
that voters have greater recall for supported candidates; however this effect is
moderated by the type of information, with greater recall for positive than
negative items (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). Thus popularity should increase
recognition in the popular condition, but more so for consistent items.
Another way that voters can deal with inconsistency is to subtype the
inconsistent individual as the exception to the party (Allport, 1954; Weber &
Crocker, 1983). If the subjects are subtyping the inconsistent individual, a task
asking the subjects how representative the target candidate is should
demonstrate this.
55
Voters can also deal with candidates who are inconsistent on issues by
changing how much they value the issues, decreasing the importance of the
issues the ingroup candidate expressed inconsistent attitudes on, and increasing
the importance of those the candidate was consistent on. Asking subjects how
important the issues are to them, both before and after learning about the
candidates, allows changes in their valuation of the issues due to exposure to
inconsistent candidates to be examined. Holbrook, Berent, Krosnick, Visser, and
Boninger (2005) argue that the accumulation of new knowledge influences the
importance that people put on the issues. Thus it is possible that when an
ingroup candidate, particularly a popular one, expresses inconsistent views on
issues the voters may change the importance they place on that issue.
The specific predictions of the present study were that subjects would
have more positive evaluations, and be more likely to vote for consistent
candidates. The same should be true for popular candidates. However,
popularity should moderate the influence of inconsistency, with less negative
impact of inconsistency when the candidate is popular. The influence of the
subjects’ strength of political affiliation and their political knowledge on how the
candidate was perceived was also examined. As for mechanisms, I examined
whether these effects were driven by misattribution and failure to encode the
information, or subtyping and changes in valuation of the issues.
56
Method
Subjects
75 subjects were recruited from the Introductory Psychology subject pool
at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Subjects were recruited based on their
response to a political membership item on the pretest questionnaire.
Specifically, subjects were recruited from individuals who responded that they
identified themselves with the Democratic Party. Subjects were randomly
assigned to one of the four conditions, with 19 in the Consistent-Popular
condition, 18 in the Consistent-Unpopular condition, 19 in the Inconsistent-
Popular condition, and 19 in the Inconsistent-Unpopular condition. One subject
failed to complete all of the questions and was excluded from analysis.
Materials
Target. The target was a black and white photograph of a middle aged
white male, cropped to show just his upper body and face (Appendix G). The
photograph was accompanied by a name, political party membership
(Democrat), and nine statements about the candidate. Unlike in the previous
study, only one target was used, thus all the subjects received the same
photograph, name, and political party information (Democrat).
Experimental Conditions.
The experimental manipulation crossed the stereotypical-consistency and
popularity of the target candidate, and was between subjects. One half of the
subjects learned that the candidate held stereotype-consistent attitudes on six
issues, as well as three pieces of irrelevant information (i.e. the candidates’
57
hobbies; see Appendix H). The other half of the subjects learned that the
candidate held three consistent and three inconsistent attitudes, as well as three
irrelevant pieces of information (see Appendix I).
Popularity was manipulated by having half of the subjects from each
consistency condition learn that the majority of Democrat voters in the
candidate’s home district supported him:
Recently Democrat voters in Stephen Johnson’s home district were polled about whom they planned to vote for in the upcoming Congressional primary. 79 percent of registered Democrats stated they would vote for Stephen Johnson. The next most popular Democrat candidate received only 6 percent support.
The other half of the subjects learned that the candidate had little
Democratic support:
Recently Democrat voters in Stephen Johnson’s home district were polled about whom they planned to vote for in the upcoming Congressional primary. Only 6 percent of registered Democrats stated they would vote for Stephen Johnson. The most popular Democrat candidate received 79 percent support.
This popularity information was presented on the same sheet as the
photograph, name, and party information (Appendix G).
Questionnaires. The core ratings were composed of the 10 bipolar
personality trait rating items, 24 attitude items, a bipolar measure of liberalism-
conservatism, and a number of other ratings detailed below. The personality
items consisted of two bipolar Likert scales for each of the Big-Five personality
dimensions used in Study One (Appendix J).
58
Attitudes were measured using two statements on 12 political issues.
Eight of the issues were the same as those used in Study One: abortion,
taxation, immigration, gay rights, gun laws, national defense, health care, and
energy. The four new issues were: welfare, death penalty, Homeland Security,
and drug laws. As with the measures from Study One for each issue there was
one statement expressing a conservative viewpoint and one statement
expressing a liberal viewpoint. When indicating their own position, the subjects
rated how much they agreed with each statement (Appendix J). When rating the
target candidate the subjects indicated where they perceived the candidate to
stand on the issue (Appendix K).
Overall political ideology was measured using a bipolar measure (see
Appendix J), with subjects indicating where they fell along the liberal to
conservative spectrum as well as where they perceived the target candidate to
stand (Appendix K).
Subjects rated how important each of the 12 issues were to themselves,
as well as self-rated strength of affiliation to party and degree of political
knowledge (see Appendix J).
Subjects completed a free recall task, in which, they were given a page of
blank paper and asked to recall as many of the statements about the candidate
as possible.
Subjects completed a cued recognition task (Appendix M), in which, they
were given a sheet containing all of the political statements previously learned,
as well as 18 filler items consisting of 9 items stereotypically consistent with the
59
Democratic Party’s stand and 9 items stereotypically inconsistent and indicated
whether they thought the candidate had made the statement or not, and how
sure they were about their choice. This questionnaire also included a subtyping
measure, which asked how typical or atypical were the candidate’s attitudes and
beliefs compared to the attitudes and beliefs of the other members of his political
party (see Appendix N).
Procedure
At pretest subjects indicated their own political party membership, their
strength of party affiliation, the ideology measure, and their positions on the 24
attitude statements. The political party membership question was used in
recruitment (only Democrats were recruited).
Upon arrival at the laboratory, subjects were informed that they were
taking part in a study on the formation of impressions about political candidates.
The experimental session took place in an open room with individual carrels for
the subjects.
Once the subjects had been seated the experimenter handed out the first
booklet. This booklet included the measures of how important each of the issues
was to the subject. After completing the self-ratings the experimenter collected
them, and handed out the booklet containing the candidate target information.
This included the candidate’s name, political party, photograph, and the
popularity condition information and nine statements about the candidate. Once
all the subjects had received their booklet they were instructed as follows:
You will now be forming impressions of the political candidate. Inside of the booklet are the photograph, name, political party, and some
60
information about the candidate. This candidate is running for state congress in another state, so you will most likely not be familiar with him beforehand. You will have three minute to read through the statements and view the photograph. Once you have formed impressions about the candidate you will rate him of on a number of personality and political attitude items. Please begin.
Once the subjects had viewed and formed an impression about the candidate
they were given the rating booklet. They were told:
You will now make ratings of the candidate’s political attitudes and personality. You will have 5 minutes to complete this questionnaire. Once you have completed the questionnaire please close it and flip it over and I will collect it. We will move on to the next phase once the 5 minutes have elapsed, so if you complete the questionnaire before the 5 minutes have elapsed please sit quietly. You may now begin.
Next the subjects completed a second self-rating questionnaire, which contained
the 24 own attitude measures, self-ideology, and importance of the issues to
them. After completing this task the subjects completed the recall task. Finally,
the subjects completed the cued recognition and subtyping measures.
Results
Study Two was designed to examine the influence of candidate popularity
and consistency, as well as the subject’s strength of party affiliation and political
knowledge on impressions of the candidate’s attitudes, as well as a number of
other impression variables; such as projection of the subject’s attitudes onto the
candidate, liking of the candidate, likelihood of voting for him, overall perceived
similarity, and perceptions of the candidate’s strength of party affiliation. I
predicted that both consistency and popularity would increase all of these
variables. I also expected that the popularity of the candidate would moderate the
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consistency effect, with consistency mattering less when the candidate was
popular.
In addition to examining these impression variables a number of potential
process variables to account for these changes were included. As mentioned in
the introduction I expected that differences in memory would be responsible for
the impression differences, therefore recall and recognition measures were
taken. While I did not believe that changes in valuation of the issues, nor
subtyping of the candidate would be responsible for the impression differences,
these measures were included as well.
Strength of Affiliation
Before examining the impression variables I will discuss the subjects’ self-
rated strength of affiliation to political party. There were no significant pre-
existing differences in strength of affiliation due to popularity condition (Means:
Popular = 4.58, Unpopular = 4.45) or consistency (Means: Consistent = 4.29,
Inconsistent = 4.73), though the distribution of self-rated affiliation was slightly
negatively skewed (Figure 8).
Impression Variables
Overview. The impression variables were examined first; how much the
subjects liked the candidate, how likely they were to vote for him, how strongly
affiliated they perceived him to be to his political party, and how similar they
perceived him to be to themselves.
Analyses. For all of the impression variables a regression was performed
with the following predictors: contrast coded popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1
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Popular), contrast coded consistency (-1 Inconsistent and +1 Consistent), the
subject’s self-reported mean-deviated political knowledge and strength of party
affiliation, and all the interactions. All of the impression measures were collected
after the subjects completed the attitude impression measures, but before they
re-rated their own positions (see Appendix K).
Figure 8. Affiliation Strength. Frequency Distribution of Subjects’ self-
rated strength of affiliation to their political party.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Subject Self-Rated Affiliation Strength
Number of Subjects
Evaluation. Evaluation was measured with a single 7-point Likert scale
asking how much the subject liked the candidate, ranging from 1 - disliked very
much, to 7 – liked very much. As predicted there was a significant main effect for
consistency, t(1,74) = 4.82, p < .0001, with subjects in the consistent conditions
liking the candidates more (Means: consistent = 5.19, inconsistent = 3.82) . The
predicted main effect of popularity was not significant, t(1,74) = -0.84, p = .41, nor
was the interaction of consistency and popularity, t(1,74) = 1.32, p = .19. The
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three-way interaction of affiliation, consistency, and popularity was significant,
t(1,74) = -2.01, p = .05 (see Figure 9). While highly affiliated subject liked the
consistent candidate more than the inconsistent candidate regardless of
popularity, less affiliated subjects liked the inconsistent-unpopular candidate as
much as the consistent ones (both popular and unpopular). Separate analyses
testing the effects at both high and low affiliation (+1 and -1 standard deviation)
were run. The consistency by popularity interaction was significant at low
affiliation, t(1,59) = 2.32, p = .02, but not at high affiliation, t(1,59) = -.073, p =
.47.
Figure 9. Evaluation. Subjects’ rated liking of the candidate by
consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1
and +1 Standard Deviation).
Lo Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Liking
Consistent
Inconsistent
Hi Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Liking
Consistent
Inconsistent
Finally, there was a significant interaction of the subject’s strength of
affiliation and political knowledge, t(1,74) = 2.15, p = .04, with more highly
affiliated-highly knowledgeable subjects liking the candidates more overall.
I predicted that the subjects would use the consistency information more
when the candidate was unpopular. For highly affiliated subjects, directionally
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the pattern was as expected, though not significantly. Low affiliated subjects
showed the opposite effect, with consistency information mattering less when the
candidate was unpopular. It is possible that the less affiliated subjects liked a
candidate who also appeared to be less affiliated, which could explain why they
liked the unpopular-inconsistent candidate so much. It is also possible that they
were less motivated to pay attention to the statements about the candidate.
Voting Likelihood. Voting likelihood was measured with a single 7-point
Likert scale asking how likely the subject was to vote for the candidate, ranging
from 1 – not at all likely, to 7 – very likely. As predicted, the subjects in the
consistent conditions were more likely to vote for the candidate t(1,74) = 3.14, p
< .01 (Means: consistent = 4.92, inconsistent = 3.61). As with evaluation, the
popularity main effect was not significant, t(1,74) = 0.23, p = .82, nor was the
consistency by popularity interaction, t(1,74) = 1.02, p = .31.
There was a significant three-way interaction of affiliation, consistency,
and popularity, t(1,74) = -2.51, p = .02 (Figure 10). Separate analyses testing the
effects at both high and low affiliation (+1 and -1 standard deviation) were
conducted. The consistency by popularity interaction was significant at low
affiliation, t(1,59) = 2.50, p = .02, but not at high affiliation, t(1,59) = -1.32, p =
.19. When the subjects were highly affiliated to their political party they showed
the predicted effect, though not significantly; consistency information mattered
less when the candidate was popular. When the subject was less affiliated the
pattern was reversed; consistency information mattered more when the
candidate was popular. High affiliated subjects were directionally less likely to
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vote for an unpopular-inconsistent candidate than an popular-consistent one,
while the opposite was true for low affiliated subjects.
Figure 10. Voting Likelihood. Subjects’ rated likelihood of voting for the
candidate by consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated
subjects (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation).
Lo Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Voting Likelihood
Consistent
Inconsistent
Hi Affiliation
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Voting Likelihood
Consistent
Inconsistent
Directionally, but not significantly the highly affiliated subjects again
support the prediction that the subjects would use the popularity information
more when the candidate was inconsistent. As with evaluation it appears that
the highly affiliated subjects were not using the consistency information as much
when the candidate was popular, though they were when the candidate was
unpopular. The lower affiliated subjects were using the consistency information
in both popularity conditions (though in opposing ways). In the popular
conditions the low affiliated subjects were using the popularity information as
expected, being less likely to vote if the candidate was inconsistent. In the
unpopular condition voting likelihood reversed, with the subjects more likely to
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vote for the inconsistent candidate. This result was similar to what was found for
evaluation.
Perceived Similarity. Perceived similarity was measured using a single 7-
point Likert scale asking how similar the subject perceived the candidate to be to
themselves, ranging from 1 – not at all similar, to 7 – very similar. The predicted
consistency main effect was significant, t(1,74) = 3.86, p < .001 (Means:
consistent = 4.73, inconsistent = 3.21). Neither the predicted popularity main
effect, t(1,74) = 0.63, p = .65, nor the interaction of consistency and popularity,
t(1,74) = 0.57, p = .57 were significant. There was a marginal affiliation main
effect, t(1,74) = -1.94, p = .06, in which the more affiliated a subject was, the less
similar they perceived the candidate to be to themselves. The more politically
knowledgeable the subject was the more similarity they perceived between
themselves and the candidate, t(1,74) = 2.68, p < .01.
There was a significant affiliation by consistency interaction, t(1,74) = 2.45,
p = .02, with low affiliated subjects showing the consistency effect less than
highly affiliated subjects. Affiliation also interacted with popularity, t(1,74) = 2.35,
p = .02, with high affiliated subjects in the popular conditions seeing the
candidate as more similar, while the low affiliated subjects showed the opposite
effect. Finally, the affiliation by popularity interaction was moderated by
consistency, t(1,74) = -2.66, p < .01 (Figure 11). Separate analyses were run
testing the effects at both high and low affiliation (+1 and -1 standard deviation).
The consistency by popularity interaction was significant at low affiliation, t(1,59)
= 2.33, p = .02, but only marginally at high affiliation, t(1,59) = -1.74, p = .08. As
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with liking and voting likelihood the highly affiliated subjects directionally, but not
significantly supported the hypothesis that when the candidate was popular the
consistency information would matter less. However, less affiliated subjects
showed the obverse pattern, with greater perceived similarity to the unpopular-
inconsistent candidate than the popular-inconsistent one.
Figure 11. Similarity. Subjects’ rated similarity to the candidate by
consistency, popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1
and +1 Standard Deviation).
Lo Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Perceived Similarity to Candidate
Consistent
Inconsistent
Hi Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Perceived Similarity to Candidate
Consistent
Inconsistent
Perceived Strength of Target’s Affiliation. The strength of the target’s
affiliation was measured with a single 7-point Likert scale which asked how
strongly affiliated the subject thought the candidate was, ranging from 1 – very
weakly affiliated, to 7 – very strongly affiliated. The predicted consistency effect
was significant, t(1,74) = 2.95, p < .01, with subjects in the consistent conditions
rating the candidate as more strongly affiliated (Means: consistent = 5.30,
inconsistent = 4.39). Neither the predicted popularity main effect, t(1,74) = -0.04,
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p = .97, nor the interaction of consistency and popularity, t(1,74) = 1.32, p = .19
were significant. There was a marginal interaction of consistency and popularity
with the subject’s strength of affiliation, t(1,74) = -1.77, p = .08 (Figure 12).
Figure 12. Candidate’s Affiliation Strength. Subjects’ rating of the
candidate’s strength of affiliation to the Democratic Party by consistency,
popularity, for low (left) and high (right) affiliated subjects (-1 and +1
Standard Deviation).
Lo Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Perceived Strength of Candidate Affiliation
Consistent
Inconsistent
Hi Affiliation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Perceived Strength of Candidate Affiliation
Consistent
Inconsistent
Separate analyses testing the effects at both high and low affiliation (+1
and -1 standard deviation) were run. The consistency by popularity interaction
was significant at low affiliation, t(1,59) = 2.14, p = .04, but not at high affiliation,
t(1,59) = -.53, p = .60. Specifically, both high and low affiliated subjects in the
consistent-popular condition perceived the candidate as more affiliated than
those in the popular-inconsistent condition. However, the highly affiliated
subjects in the inconsistent-popular condition perceived the candidate as
affiliated as those in the inconsistent-unpopular condition, while low affiliated
subjects saw the inconsistent-unpopular as more affiliated.
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The pattern of results for perceived affiliation strength was not as
predicted. Highly affiliated subjects were using the popularity information in both
the consistent and inconsistent condition, rather than in just the inconsistent
ones, though not significantly. As with the liking, voting, and similarity the
inconsistent-unpopular condition had the highest mean among the lower affiliated
subjects. The possibility that the low affiliated subjects identified more with low
affiliated candidates seems less likely for this dependent variable. Since the task
was to determine how affiliated the candidate was to his party, these results are
difficult to explain. However, the three-way interaction was only marginal in this
case.
Projection
The extent to which the subject’s own attitudes on the issues influenced
their perceptions of the candidate’s position on the issues was examined next. I
predicted that both consistency and popularity would influence projection;
subjects would project both when the candidate was popular and consistent. I
also predicted that these effects would be moderated by the subject’s strength of
affiliation, with more affiliated subjects showing a larger effect. Possible
moderation by the subject’s political knowledge was also examined
Analysis. The projection results were calculated using a multi-level
regression. The first level of the regression predicted the judges’ ratings of the
target candidates’ positions on the 24 attitude items, using the judges’ mean
centered self-ratings as the predictor. This first level regression was computed
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for each subject, which resulted in a beta for the intercept and self-rating
(projection).
The resulting slopes were then regressed onto consistency (coded -1
Inconsistent and +1 Consistent), popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1 Popular),
subject’s self-rated strength of affiliation (mean-deviated), subject’s self-rated
political knowledge (mean-deviated), and all the interactions.
Results. The regression using the first level regression self-rating beta
examines projection. As expected there was significant overall projection to the
candidate, t(1,74) = 6.14, p < .0001. As predicted the subjects in the consistent
condition projected more than subjects in the inconsistent condition, t(1,74) =
2.66, p < .01. However, popularity, subject’s strength of affiliation, and their
political knowledge did not influence projection.
There were also a number of non-projection effects. Subjects in the
consistent condition rated the candidate as more liberal than those subjects in
the inconsistent conditions, t(1,74) = 5.55, p < .0001, as expected. The
popularity of the candidate did not influence how liberal he was rated, t(1,74) = -
1.14, p = .26. However, the subject’s strength of affiliation interacted significantly
with popularity, t(1,74) = 2.94, p < .01, with more strongly affiliated subjects in the
popular conditions rating the candidate as more liberal. This two-way interaction
was moderated by consistency, t(1,74) = 3.17, p = .03. Specifically, more
strongly affiliated subjects rated the popular candidate as even more liberal when
the candidate was also consistent.
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The more politically knowledgeable subjects rated the candidate as more
liberal, t(1,74) = 2.06, p = .04. The more strongly affiliated the subjects the
greater their political knowledge influenced their rating of how liberal they
perceived the candidate, t(1,74) = 2.52, p < .01.
As I predicted, the subjects projected the most towards the popular
candidate, regardless of consistency. I also predicted that the subjects would
project more towards the inconsistent-popular candidate than the inconsistent-
unpopular candidate. The subjects did project their own positions more onto the
ingroup candidate, even more so when the candidate was consistent. However,
the expected popularity effect was not significant. So it appears that the
consistency information increased the subject’s perceptions of attitude similarity
between themselves and the candidate, while popularity did not.
Process Variables
In addition to examining how consistency and popularity influence
impressions, I was also interested in factors which could contribute to these
effects. The following analyses examined how consistency, popularity, subject’s
strength of affiliation, and their political knowledge influenced the recall and
recognition of the candidate’s statements, the subject’s valuation of the issues,
and subtyping of the candidate.
I predicted that differential memory encoding would be responsible for the
differences due to consistency and popularity, rather than changes in valuation or
subtyping of the candidate (especially in the popular-inconsistent condition).
Since the prediction that popularity would moderate consistency only occurred for
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the highly affiliated subjects (directionally) I predicted similar effects for the
memory measure for highly affiliated subjects, but not for the valuation and
subtyping measures.
Recall. The number of correctly recalled statement items that the subjects
recorded on the blank sheet during the recall task was calculated. This value
was then regressed with contrast coded popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1
Popular), contrast coded consistency (-1 Inconsistent and +1 Consistent), the
subject’s self-reported mean-deviated political knowledge and strength of party
affiliation, and all the interactions as predictors. The average number of recalled
items was 4.84, with a negatively skewed distribution (Figure 13).
Figure 13. Recall. Frequency Distribution of number freely recalled items.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Number of Items Freely Recalled
Number of Subjects
The main effect of popularity was marginal, t(1,74) = -1.89, p = .06, with
subjects recalling more information about the unpopular candidates (see Figure
14). Neither the predicted main effect of consistency, t(1,74) = 1.20, p = .24, nor
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the interaction of consistency and popularity t(1,74) = -0.68, p = .50 was
significant.
Figure 14. Recall. Number of freely recalled candidate statements by
popularity and consistency conditions.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Popular Unpopular
Total number of Items Freely Recalled
Consistent
Inconsistent
So while the subjects used the consistency information more when
evaluating the candidate, determining voting likelihood, and perceived similarity
they did not recall significantly more about candidate when he was consistent.
However they did recall somewhat more about the candidate in the unpopular
condition than the popular ones.
Recognition. The recognition task consisted of the six attitude statements
(6 consistent in the consistent condition, or three consistent and three
inconsistent in the inconsistent condition) that the subjects had read about the
candidates and 18 filler items (nine stereotypically consistent with the Democratic
Party and nine inconsistent). For each of these items the subject answered
whether or not they had seen it before and on a 3-point scale how sure they were
74
about their answer. From these two ratings I calculated a new scale ranging
from 1 to 6. The scores were:
1 = very confident not seen 2 = somewhat confident not seen 3 = not at all confident not seen 4 = not at all confident seen 5 = somewhat confident seen 6 = very confident seen
For all subjects the average value for both old and new items was calculated.
For the subjects in the inconsistent condition, the average for old-consistent, old-
inconsistent, new-consistent, new inconsistent items was calculated. For the
subjects in the consistent condition, the average for old-consistent and new-
consistent items was calculated. These measures were used in three separate
models. One model examined old versus new items for subjects in both the
consistent and inconsistent conditions. Another model examined old versus new
and consistent versus inconsistent items in the inconsistent conditions. A final
model examined old-consistent versus new-consistent items in the consistent
condition.
The first model examined the difference in recognition for the actual
statements about the candidates that the subjects read (old items) versus the
filler items (new items) across the consistency conditions. The scores for each
subject on the old and new items were submitted to a GLM, with contrast coded
popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1 Popular), contrast coded consistency (-1
Inconsistent and +1 Consistent), the subject’s self-reported mean-deviated
political knowledge and strength of party affiliation, and all the interactions as
predictors.
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The expected item main effect was significant, F(1,74) = 304.91, p <
.0001, with greater recognition of the previously seen items. There was also a
marginal item by consistency interaction, F(1,74) = 2.99, p = .09. While subjects
in both the consistent and inconsistent conditions had greater recognition of the
previously seen items than the new ones, the subjects in the inconsistent
conditions showing greater recognition for the previously seen statements.
Subjects in the consistent conditions demonstrated greater familiarity for the
statements which had not been seen previously (see Figure 15). There was not
an item by popularity interaction, F(1,74) < 1, p = .98, nor a three-way interaction
of item with popularity and consistency, F(1,74) = 0.23, p = .63.
Figure 15. Recognition. Weighted average recognition of candidate
statements by consistency condition and whether the statements were
actually mentioned about the candidate (Old) or newly presented (New).
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Consistent Inconsistent
Average W
eighted Recognition
Old Items
New Items
There were also a number of non-recognition effects (no interaction with
item). There was a significant interaction of the subject’s political knowledge with
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both popularity, F(1,74)= 3.9, p = .02, and consistency, F(1,74)= 3.8, p = .02, with
more knowledgeable subjects showing greater familiarity towards all the items
overall (both new and old items) in the popular and consistent conditions, but
their recognition of the old items was not better.
The second model examined differences in recognition for subjects in the
two inconsistent conditions. The scores for the old-consistent, old-inconsistent,
new-consistent, new inconsistent items were submitted to a GLM, with contrast
coded popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1 Popular), the subject’s self-reported
mean-deviated political knowledge and strength of party affiliation, and all the
interactions as predictors.
The only recognition effect was the expected main effect of item, F(1,35) =
136.75, p < .0001, with subjects showing greater recognition for the actual
candidate statements (see Figure 16). This result is consistent with Srull,
Lichtenstein, and Rothbart (1985) that when inconsistent items were present
recognition was improved for both inconsistent and consistent items.
There were also a number of effects that did not interact with item, which
indicate greater familiarity, but not recognition. There was a significant main
effect for knowledge, F(1,35) = 5.88, p = .03, with more knowledgeable subjects
reporting more familiarity to the items overall (both new and old items). The
effect of knowledge was moderated by popularity, F(1,35) = 6.32, p = .03, with
the effect of knowledge larger in the inconsistent-popular condition than the
inconsistent-unpopular. There was also a main effect for the consistency of the
items, F(1,35) = 8.56, p < .01, with greater familiarity, for stereotypically
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consistent items, regardless of whether they were new or old items. This effect
was not moderated by item, so there was no differentiation of the effect by
whether it had been previously seen (no recognition effect). The three-way
interaction of consistency of the item, the subject’s strength of affiliation, and
popularity condition was significant, F(1,35) = 5.1, p = .03, with familiarity, but not
recognition for the consistent items in the popular condition being larger for more
affiliated subjects.
Figure 16. Recognition in the Inconsistent Conditions. Weighted average
of recognized candidate statements by whether the candidate’s statement
was consistent or inconsistent on the issue and whether the statement
was actually mentioned about the candidate (Old) or newly presented
(New).
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Consistent
Items
Inconsistent
Items
Average W
eighted Recognition
Old Items
New Items
The third model examined differences in recognition for subjects in the two
consistent conditions. The subject’s scores for old-consistent and new-
consistent items were submitted to a GLM, with contrast coded popularity (-1
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Unpopular and +1 Popular), the subject’s self-reported mean-deviated political
knowledge and strength of party affiliation, and all the interactions as predictors.
The only significant result was the expected significant main effect of item,
F(1,28) = 29.84, p < .0001, with greater recognition for the actual candidate
statements (mean = 4.77) than the newly presented items (mean = 3.21) and no
other effects.
While the recall results do indicate that the subjects encoded the
information more when the candidate was unpopular, the recognition results
show that they used both popularity and consistency information. The first
recognition model demonstrated that overall the subjects encoded the
information about the candidate more when he was inconsistent. In the third
model, when the candidate was consistent, popularity did not influence
recognition. So it appears that when the candidate was inconsistent, the
subjects encoded more than when the candidate is consistent. Popularity did not
influence the amount of recognition, but did influence recall, with greater recall for
unpopular candidates.
Valuation. The difference in valuation for each issue between the first
rating and the second rating was calculated. For each subject, an average of the
differences for the six issues they learned the candidate’s position on and the six
they did not learn anything about was calculated. For the subjects in the two
inconsistent conditions the average differences on the three issues that they
learned consistent information about the candidate, as well as an average of the
differences on the three issues they learned inconsistent information about the
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candidate were calculated. Using these new values three separate models were
analyzed to examine how the subjects changed how they valued the issues
before learning about the candidate, and after.
The first model examined changes in valuation for all subjects on the
issues they learned information about, and those they did not. The scores for
each subject on the learned and unlearned issues were submitted to a GLM, with
popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1 Popular), contrast coded consistency (-1
Inconsistent and +1 Consistent), the subject’s self-reported mean-deviated
political knowledge and strength of party affiliation, and all the interactions as
predictors.
For the first model there were no interactions of issue type with
consistency, popularity, or the three-way. Additionally, the four-way interaction of
issue type, subject’s affiliation strength, consistency, and popularity was also
non-significant. There was a significant three-way interaction of issue type
(learned versus unlearned), consistency, and subject’s political knowledge,
F(1,59) = 6.09, p = .02, with more knowledgeable subjects valuing the seen
issues more in the consistent conditions (see Figure 17).
The second model examined differences in valuation for subjects in the
two inconsistent conditions. The scores for the unlearned, learned-consistent,
and learned-inconsistent issues were submitted to a GLM, with popularity (-1
Unpopular and +1 Popular), the subject’s self-reported mean-deviated political
knowledge and strength of party affiliation, and all the interactions as predictors.
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Again there was no main effect for issue type, nor did it interact with any of
the other factors. In fact, the only effect near to significance was a marginal main
effect of popularity, F(1,30) = 3.77, p = .06, in which overall subjects in the
popular-inconsistent condition (Mean: - .15) decreased their valuation across all
issues (both previously seen and unseen) more so than subjects in the popular-
consistent condition (Mean: -.09).
Figure 17. Valuation across Popularity Conditions. Average change in
valuation of the issues from Time 1 and Time 2 by consistency condition,
whether the issue had been mentioned in the candidate statement (seen)
or was not mentioned (unseen), and for low (left) and high (right)
knowledge subjects (-1 and +1 Standard Deviation).
.
Lo Knowledge
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Consistent Inconsistent
Average Change in Valuation between Time 1 and
Time 2
Seen Item
Unseen Item
Hi Knowledge
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Consistent Inconsistent
Average Change in Valuation between Time 1 and
Time 2
Seen Item
Unseen Item
The third model examined differences in valuations for subjects in the two
consistent conditions. The subject’s scores for learned and unlearned issues
were submitted to a GLM, with contrast coded popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1
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Popular), the subject’s self-reported mean-deviated political knowledge and
strength of party affiliation, and all the interactions as predictors.
There was only one significant effect, specifically a two-way interaction of
issue type and the subject’s political knowledge, F(1,29) = 5.18, p = .03, with
more knowledgeable subjects valuing the items mentioned in the candidate
statements more than those that that were not.
These patterns of results seem to indicate that politically knowledgeable
subjects changed their valuation based on which issues were mentioned by the
candidate. Specifically, when the candidate was consistent the more
knowledgeable subjects valued the issues the candidate supported more than
issues not mentioned. This could be because the candidate’s statements made
the subject’s own attitudes on the issues more salient, which made these issues
seem more important.
Subtyping. Subtyping of the target from his political party was measured
with a single 7-point Likert scale which asked the subjects how typical they
thought the candidate was of the Democratic Party, ranging from 1 – very typical,
to 7 – very atypical. A regression was performed on this measure with contrast
coded popularity (-1 Unpopular and +1 Popular), contrast coded consistency (-1
Inconsistent and +1 Consistent), the subject’s self-reported mean-deviated
political knowledge and strength of party affiliation, and all the interactions as
predictors.
As predicted there was not a significant main effect for consistency,
popularity, or the interaction. The three-way interaction of subject’s affiliation
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strength, consistency, and popularity was also not significant. There was a
significant two-way interaction of the subject’s political knowledge and popularity,
t(1,74) = 2.04, p = .05, with more knowledgeable subjects subtyping the
unpopular candidate more (see Figure 18).
Figure 18. Subtyping. Subjects’ rated typicality of the candidate for the
Democratic Party by popularity, and affiliation (-1 and +1 Standard
Deviation).
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Lo Knowledge Hi Knowledge
Perceived Typicality of Candidate
Popular
Unpopular
Discussion
In Study Two I expected that the candidate’s popularity would moderate
the consistency of the candidate, overwhelming the consistency information
when the candidate was popular; only mattering when the candidate was
unpopular. I expected that when other members of their political party had
already “vouched” for the candidate, in the form of overwhelming support, the
83
subjects would pay less attention to the other information presented about him.
Directionally, the highly motivated subjects performed as expected.
The subjects did pay close attention to the consistency information. The
memory measures showed that our subjects had marginally better recognition of
the candidate’s statements when he was inconsistent. When the subjects
learned both consistent and inconsistent statements about the candidate they
had greater familiarity of consistent items, but not better recognition for
previously seen items. There was a marginal moderating effect of popularity on
recall, with greater recall for statements about the unpopular candidate.
It appears that to some extent the subjects did rely on the endorsement of
his political party members for the popular candidate. In fact, when freely
recalling information about the candidate the subjects recalled marginally more of
the statements when the candidate was popular.
The subject’s strength of affiliation to their political party had a large
impact on how the subject perceived the political candidate. Highly affiliated
subjects showed preference for the consistent candidate. The highly affiliated
subjects were more likely to vote for the consistent candidate, saw him as more
similar, and liked him more, regardless of popularity. Directionally but not
significantly, when the candidate was inconsistent, highly affiliated subjects used
the candidate’s popularity information to a greater extent; liking the unpopular-
inconsistent candidate the least, were least likely to vote for him, and saw him as
the least similar. The less affiliated subjects showed a preference for the
outsider, they liked, wanted to vote for, and felt similar to the unpopular-
84
inconsistent candidate. However, the less affiliated subjects did not show the
same preference for the popular-inconsistent candidate.
Regardless of the subject’s strength of affiliation they all projected their
own attitudes more onto the candidate when the candidate was consistent. The
popularity of the candidate did not influence the degree to which the subjects
projected.
The failure of the predicted pattern of findings to attain significance for the
highly affiliated subjects could be due to the nature of the task. The subjects
were only learning about a single candidate, so there was no comparison
candidate. It could be that if popularity and consistency had been within subject
rather than between subjects the addition of more candidates could have led to
greater discrimination on the evaluation, voting likelihood, and similarity
measures resulting in the predicted pattern attaining significance. However, the
results did go in the predicted direction for highly affiliated subjects and bears
further investigation.
It is also possible that the “highly affiliated” subjects were not affiliated
enough. The sample was drawn from the Introductory Psychology Subject Pool,
mostly comprised of first and second year college students. Research on
attitude strength has demonstrated that young adults, of which the sample was
drawn from, have less consistent attitudes, which are more easily changed than
later in life (Krosnick & Alwin, 1989; Visser & Krosnick, 1998). So it is possible
that with the sample drawn from a more politically established and active
85
population the directional interaction of affiliation strength, popularity, and
consistency would attain significance.
The previous two studies have examined impression formation of political
candidates in the laboratory. The final study was designed to investigate political
perception using a representative voting population.
86
Chapter 4:
Study Three
The purpose of the third study was to examine the influence of information
and political party membership on perceptions about political candidates and
parties in a real-world, representative sample. The previous two studies
examined the effect of different types of information on political impressions in
the laboratory. The first study examined how the diagnosticity and relevance of
information influences projection, consensus, and polarization. The second
study explored how the consistency and popularity of a candidate influences
projection and a number of other impressions. This final study examined similar
questions using the American National Election Study (ANES) data from 1980
and 1988, a nationally representative sample.
The specific question examined in this study was how voters’ political
party membership and ideological and issue-specific positions influenced
projection2 of their position to the candidates, and polarization of the parties.3
The influence of the voter’s level of political knowledge on perception of
polarization between the Democratic Party and Republican Party was also
examined.
2 In survey data the correlation between the respondent’s own position and their rating of the
candidate is not always due to projection (Krosnick, 2002). However, the model of the 1980 data uses an aggregate measure of political attitudes for the self and an aggregate measure across multiple candidates, which should decrease the likelihood that the correlation is due to persuasion effects. The 1988 data measures the correlation between self and other using a single measure of political ideology for the self rating, and an aggregate measure of ideology across target candidates for other. Ideology should be less changeable than individual attitudes. Thus, for the purpose of the current examination the term projection will be used when discussing the self-other correlation. 3 A model of within-party variability was also run on both datasets. However, no significant paths
were found, and a repeated measure ANOVA did not find significant outgroup homogeneity effects. Therefore these models were not included in this paper.
87
I expected that the processes demonstrated in the laboratory with the
undergraduate population would also occur with a “real-world” sample of voters.
Specifically, I expected that voters would project their own positions more
towards their own political party. I also predicted that the more ideologically
extreme and politically knowledgeable the respondent, the more polarized they
would see the parties.
Method
For this study two datasets from the ANES database were used. A data
set with ratings of multiple candidates was needed to examine ingroup-outgroup
projection and polarization. The two datasets that fit this requirement best were
the 1980 two-wave Presidential election survey, and the 1988 Super Tuesday
survey. Each of these surveys will be examined in turn.
1980 ANES
Survey. The 1980 ANES was a two-wave panel study, which collected
data both before and after the 1980 Presidential election. Pre-election interviews
were conducted between September 7, 1980 and November 3, 1980, with post-
election interviews conducted between November 5, 1980 and February 7, 1981.
The primary sampling unit was the congressional district, with 108 districts
selected in a multi-stage probability sample. The sample included 2,249 eligible
persons, among whom 1,614 completed pre-election interviews and 1,408 were
subsequently re-interviewed after the election. The SEM analysis used data only
from registered Democrats (n = 558) and Republicans (n = 298) to examine
ingroup-outgroup differences in perceptions, with 758 omitted due to being
88
unregistered (n = 148), members of a third party (n = 137), or missing party
information (n = 473). Data were collected on electoral participation, voting
behavior, public opinion, voter attitudes on numerous issues, and impressions of
candidates’ attitudes on the same issues.
The primary reason for using this particular ANES study is the inclusion of
questions about multiple targets from each political party on multiple political
issues, which allowed us to examine differential projection towards in-group
versus out-group candidates.
Targets. As mentioned above the 1980 ANES study included questions
about multiple targets from both major political parties on multiple political issues.
Specifically, there were questions about 3 Democratic targets (Jimmy Carter, Ted
Kennedy, and the Democratic Party in general) and two Republican targets
(Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party in general).
Measures. Four political issues were used in the analyses. The voter’s
own position on the issues as well as where they saw the targets on the issues
were used to examine projection and polarization. The issues were guaranteed
job security, aid for minorities, tax increases, and governmental services (see
Appendix O). Prior to being analyzed the measures were recoded so they scaled
liberal to conservative.
In addition to the issue measures voters also answered five questions
about their level of political knowledge (see Appendix P), which were used to
form the latent variable Self-Knowledge. These measures asked the voters about
their interest in the campaign, the amount of news they watch, how much
89
attention they pay to politics, amount of attention paid to the national polls, and
an observation of the voter’s level of knowledge by the interviewer. Finally, the
voters answered whether they were registered to vote, and if so with which party.
This measure was then used as the between group measure in the SEM
analyses, with voters not registered to vote with one of the two major parties
being excluded from the analyses.
1988 Super Tuesday ANES
Survey. The 1988 Super Tuesday ANES survey was a two-wave study,
which collected data both before and after Super Tuesday, on which sixteen
states held a presidential primary. The first wave of data was collected during
the seven weeks prior to Super Tuesday, with a brief follow-up was collected
immediately after (2/3 collected in the first week). The primary sampling unit was
the congressional district, with 108 districts selected in a multi-probability sample.
A total of 2076 interviews were distributed over the seven weeks. The second
wave reinterviewed 1688 of the voters.
The SEM analysis used data only from registered Democrats (n = 812)
and Republicans (n = 452) to examine ingroup-outgroup differences in
perceptions, with 812 omitted due to being unregistered (n = 87), members of a
third party (n = 271), or missing party information (n = 454). Measures included
feeling thermometers and traits, assessment of each candidate's chances of
winning his/her party's nomination and the November general election, attitudes
on public issues, vote intention and choice, and respondent's age, race,
education, occupation, labor union membership, income, and religious affiliation.
90
More importantly for the current analysis measures were collected about the
voter’s own political ideology (liberal to conservative) as well as their impressions
of seven politicians from each party on the same ideology measure. Additionally,
voters were asked a number of questions about their own level of political
knowledge.
The primary reason for using this particular ANES study is the inclusion of
the ideology measure about multiple targets from each political party, which
allowed examination of differential projection towards in-group versus out-group
candidates.
Targets. As mentioned above the 1988 Super Tuesday ANES study
included questions about multiple candidates from both major political parties.
Specifically, there were questions about seven Democratic candidates (Albert
Gore, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, Bruce Babbitt, Jesse Jackson, Richard
Gephardt, and Paul Simon) and seven Republicans (Ronald Reagan, George
Bush Sr., Alexander Haig, Pat Robertson, Robert Dole, Jack Kemp, and Pierre
Dupont).
Measures. The voter’s own position on the ideology measure as well as
where they saw the targets on the same ideology measure were used to examine
projection and polarization. The ideology measure was a 7-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 –Very Liberal to 7 – Very Conservative. In addition to the
ideology measure voters also answered four questions about their level of
political knowledge (see Appendix Q), which were used to form the latent
variable Self-Knowledge. These measures asked the voters about their interest
91
in the Presidential campaign, the amount of news they watch, how much
attention they pay to politics in newspapers, and amount of interest in politics.
Finally, the voters answered whether they were registered to vote, and if so with
which party. This measure was then used as the between group measure in the
SEM analyses, with voters not registered to vote with one of the two major
parties being excluded from the analyses.
Results
1980 ANES Dataset
The first model used data from the 1980 ANES in which respondents were
asked for their own positions on seven different issues (see Appendix O) as well
as the positions that the perceived Democrats and Republicans to have on these
issues (Democrats in general plus two Democratic candidates, Republicans in
general plus one Republican candidate). I started by looking at the degree to
which these seven issues represented a single underlying factor, examining
through exploratory factor analysis their loadings on the first principle component
(using self ratings only). From this analysis it appeared that the following four
variables all shared considerable common variance and hence these four were
used in our model as indicators of a common underlying factor.
The model, as depicted in Figures 19a and 19b, has four latent variables,
two exogenous and two endogenous. The exogenous ones are own ideology
(with four indicators of own position on each of the four issues) and own political
knowledge, measuring this with four indicators (Appendix P). The latent
Fig
ure
19
a. 1
980
AN
ES
Str
uctu
ral E
qu
atio
n M
od
el 1
(D
em
ocra
t V
ote
rs):
M
od
el of
Dem
ocra
tic P
art
y v
ote
rs’ se
lf-
ratin
gs o
n fo
ur
po
litic
al is
su
es a
nd
th
eir s
elf-r
ate
d p
olit
ica
l kn
ow
led
ge
eff
ect o
n p
roje
ction
an
d p
ola
riza
tio
n o
f th
e
De
mo
cra
tic a
nd
Re
pu
blic
an
Pa
rtie
s.
Se
lf
Ide
olo
gy
Se
rvS
elf
e1
.69
Aid
Se
lfe
3.4
8
Jo
bS
elf
e4
.67
De
mo
cra
t
Ide
olo
gy
Av
gJ
ob
De
me
5
Av
gA
idD
em
e6
Av
gS
erv
De
me
8
.68
.63
.45
Re
pu
blic
an
Ide
olo
gy
Av
gJ
ob
Re
pe
9
Av
gA
idR
ep
e1
0
Av
gS
erv
Re
pe
12
.72
.72
Se
lf
Kn
ow
led
ge
Info
e1
4
Ob
sIn
tere
st
e1
5
Po
lls
e1
6
.87
.75
.41
Se
lfIn
tere
st
e1
7
.39
e1
8
e1
9
-.0
1
-.2
1
-.1
7
.31
-.2
4
.41
.27
.35
.10
.14
.17
.31
.49
.25
.01
.08
Un
em
pS
elf
e2
0
.50
Av
gU
ne
mp
De
me
21
.48
Av
gU
ne
mp
Re
pe
22
.46
.08
.33
.00
92
Fig
ure
19
b. 1
98
0 A
NE
S S
tru
ctu
ral E
qu
atio
n M
od
el 1
(R
ep
ub
lican
Vo
ters
):
Mo
de
l of
Re
pub
lica
n P
art
y v
ote
rs’ se
lf-
ratin
gs o
n fo
ur
po
litic
al is
su
es a
nd
th
eir s
elf-r
ate
d p
olit
ica
l kn
ow
led
ge
eff
ect o
n p
roje
ction
an
d p
ola
riza
tio
n o
f th
e
De
mo
cra
tic a
nd
Re
pu
blic
an
Pa
rtie
s. S
elf
Ide
olo
gy
Serv
Self
e1
.53
Aid
Self
e3
.48
JobS
elf
e4
.59
De
mo
cra
t
Ide
olo
gy
Avg
JobD
em
e5
Avg
Aid
Dem
e6
Avg
Serv
Dem
e8
.65
.68
.43
Re
pu
blic
an
Ide
olo
gy
Avg
JobR
ep
e9
Avg
Aid
Rep
e1
0
Avg
Serv
Rep
e1
2
.63
.67
Se
lf
Kn
ow
led
ge
Info
e1
4
ObsIn
tere
st
e1
5
Polls
e1
6
.88
.73
.36
SelfIn
tere
st
e1
7
.41
e1
8
e1
9
-.3
4
-.4
1
.71
.02
-.1
6
.05
.05
-.3
3
.38
.27
.36
.48
.41
-.0
4
-.0
3
-.2
5
Unem
pS
elf
e2
0
.40
Avg
Unem
pD
em
e2
1
.44
Avg
Unem
pR
ep
e2
2
.49
.47
-.3
7
-.3
0
93
94
endogenous variable were perception of the ideology of the Democrats and
perception of the ideology of the Republicans, using each issue as separate
indicators of these (and averaging within each issue across the ratings of the
party and the candidates).
The structural part of the model estimates the partial effects of the two
latent exogenous variables (own ideology and subjective knowledge) on the two
latent endogenous variables (perceived Democratic ideology and perceived
Republican ideology), allowing the disturbances to these two endogenous latent
variables to be correlated. Additionally, to account for issue specific variance in
the judgments the disturbances to the indicators involving the same issue were
allowed to correlate (e.g., disturbances to self-unemployment, Democrat-
unemployment, and Republican unemployment). Finally, a multiple group
analysis was conducted, estimating the model simultaneously for respondents
who identified themselves as Democrats and those who self-identified as
Republicans.
I first estimated this model on both groups with no between group
constraints on the parameter estimates. Although the resulting goodness of fit
Chi square was highly significant, χ172
2 = 388.71 , other measures of goodness-of-
fit that are less influenced by the large sample size used in these analyses
suggest that the model is reasonably consistent with the data, CFI = .896,
RMSEA =.038. Given this, our next step was to impose measurement invariance
between the two groups, i.e., forcing all of the loadings of the indicators on the
latent variables for the two groups to be equal between groups. This condition of
95
measurement invariance is a necessary one in order to compare structural
coefficients between the two groups. The fit indices of the resulting model were
very similar to the model that did not impose measurement invariance,
χ184
2 = 406.29 , CFI = .893, RMSEA = .038. A comparison of the Chi-squares for
these two models indicates that the measurement invariance model does not fit
the data significantly less well than the unconstrained model∆χ12
2 = 17.58, p > .25 .
In Table 1 are the loading coefficients, the standardized loadings, the
structural coefficients (with standardized values) and in Table 2 all standardized
residual covariances from this model with imposed measurement invariances. As
the standardized loadings indicate, all indicators loaded significantly and highly
on their respective latent variables. The structural coefficients from own latent
ideology reveal significant projection from the self to ones’ own party among the
Republicans (Self-Ideology to Republican-Ideology, standardized value .706, p <
.001) but not among the Democrats (Self-Ideology to Democrat-Ideology
standardized value -.008, ns).
In the case of judgments of the other party, there was significant reverse
projection (i.e., contrast) in the case of both Republicans (Self-Ideology to
Democrat-Ideology, standardized value -.336, p < .001) and Democrats (Self-
Ideology to Democrat-Ideology standardized value -.169, p = .02).
In addition to overall ideological projection the covariances between the
individual attitude items were examined (see Table 2). For the Democrat
respondents there was shared residual measurement error between the self and
the ingroup on all the issues; job security (covariance .509, p < .001), minority aid
Tab
le 1
. 19
80 A
NE
S: Lo
ad
ing a
nd
str
uctu
ral co
eff
icie
nts
: U
nsta
nd
ard
ize
d a
nd
sta
nda
rdiz
ed
estim
ate
s fo
r D
em
ocra
t (le
ft)
an
d R
ep
ub
lica
n (
Rig
ht)
re
sp
on
den
ts. *
= p <
.0
5, **
= p <
.0
1, **
* = p <
.00
01,
an
d n
s = p >
.7
0.
D
em
ocra
t R
espondent
R
epublic
an
Respondent
U
nsta
ndard
ized
Estim
ate
S
tandard
ized
Estim
ate
P
U
nsta
ndard
ized
Estim
ate
S
tandard
ized
Estim
ate
P
Dem
Ideolo
gy
<--
S
elf_Id
eolo
gy
-0.0
08
-0.0
13
ns
-0.3
05
-0.3
36
**
Dem
Ideolo
gy
<--
S
elf_K
now
ledge
-0.2
02
-0.2
11
**
-0.4
51
-0.4
06
***
Rep I
deolo
gy
<--
S
elf_Id
eolo
gy
-0.1
4
-0.1
69
* 0.6
28
0.7
06
***
Rep I
deolo
gy
<--
S
elf_K
now
ledge
0.3
73
0.3
12
***
0.0
27
0.0
25
ns
Serv
Self
<--
S
elf_Id
eolo
gy
1
0.6
88
1
0.5
33
Aid
Self
<--
S
elf_Id
eolo
gy
0.6
69
0.4
85
***
0.6
69
0.4
81
***
JobS
elf
<--
S
elf_Id
eolo
gy
1.0
15
0.6
68
***
1.0
15
0.5
89
***
Unem
pS
elf
<--
S
elf_Id
eolo
gy
0.6
15
0.5
04
***
0.6
15
0.4
44
***
AvgS
erv
Dem
<
--
Dem
Ideolo
gy
0.6
2
0.4
53
***
0.6
2
0.4
27
***
AvgA
idD
em
<
--
Dem
Ideolo
gy
0.9
21
0.6
27
***
0.9
21
0.6
8
***
AvgJobD
em
<
--
Dem
Ideolo
gy
1
0.6
76
1
0.6
47
AvgU
nem
pD
em
<
--
Dem
Ideolo
gy
0.7
5
0.4
79
***
0.7
5
0.4
44
***
AvgS
erv
Rep
<--
R
ep I
deolo
gy
0.6
78
0.4
89
***
0.6
78
0.4
12
***
AvgA
idR
ep
<--
R
ep I
deolo
gy
0.8
77
0.7
17
***
0.8
77
0.6
69
***
AvgJobR
ep
<--
R
ep I
deolo
gy
1
0.7
2
1
0.6
32
AvgU
nem
pR
ep
<--
R
ep I
deolo
gy
0.6
47
0.4
57
***
0.7
5
0.4
89
***
Info
<
--
Self_K
now
ledge
1
0.8
67
1
0.8
76
ObsIn
tere
st
<--
S
elf_K
now
ledge
0.8
4
0.7
5
***
0.8
4
0.7
35
***
Polls
<
--
Self_K
now
ledge
0.7
16
0.4
11
***
0.7
16
0.3
59
***
SelfIn
tere
st
<--
S
elf_K
now
ledge
0.6
79
0.3
95
***
0.6
79
0.4
09
***
96
97
the issues; job security (covariance .614, p < .001), minority aid (covariance .239,
p < .01), government services (covariance .673, p < .001), and unemployment
(covariance .659, p < .001). There was also negatively correlated shared error
variance for Republican respondents towards the outgroup (Democrats) on
government services (covariance -518, p < .001) and unemployment (covariance
-.605, p < .001). For Democrat respondents there was no negatively correlated
shared error variance, however Democrats did have positively correlated shared
error variance towards the outgroup (Republicans) on minority aid (covariance
.176, p < .05) and job security (covariance .432, p < .001).
Table 2. 1980 ANES: Standardized Residual Covariances for Democrat
(Left) and Republican (Right) respondents. *** = p < .0001.
Democrat Respondents Republican Respondents
Covariance P Covariance P
Self-Knowledge <--> Self_Ideology 0.179 0.006 0.248 ***
Dem Ideology <--> Rep Ideology -0.186 0.003 -0.061 0.279
ServSelf <--> AvgServDem 0.449 *** -0.518 ***
AidSelf <--> AvgAidDem 0.377 *** 0.046 0.561
JobSelf <--> AvgJobDem 0.509 *** 0.068 0.546
UnempSelf <--> AvgUnempDem 0.481 *** -0.605 ***
ServSelf <--> AvgServRep 0.165 0.111 0.673 ***
AidSelf <--> AvgAidRep 0.176 0.038 0.239 0.003
JobSelf <--> AvgJobRep 0.432 *** 0.614 ***
UnempSelf <--> AvgUnempRep 0.14 0.2 0.659 ***
AvgServDem <--> AvgServRep 0.092 0.186 -0.338 ***
AvgAidDem <--> AvgAidRep 0.008 0.886 -0.019 0.766
AvgJobDem <--> AvgJobRep 0.215 0.002 -0.035 0.698
AvgEmpDem <--> AvgUnempRep 0.004 0.97 -0.406 0.002
Turning to the impact of subjective self-knowledge, for both groups, the
more knowledgeable the respondent the more they saw Democrats as having
liberal ideologies (For Republicans, Self-Knowledge to Democrat-Ideology,
98
standardized value -.406, p < .001; For Democrats, Self-Knowledge to Democrat-
Ideology, standardized value -.211, p = .002). On the other hand among
Democrats the more knowledgeable the more Republicans were seen to be
conservative in their ideology (Self-Knowledge to Republican-Ideology,
standardized value .312, p < .001), but for Republicans, self-knowledge had no
impact on the perceived ideology of Republicans (Self-Knowledge to Republican-
Ideology, standardized value .025, ns). Thus it appears that more knowledge on
the part of respondents is associated with seeing the outgroup party as more
extreme in its ideological beliefs.
In sum, in perceiving the outgroup, there is significant reverse projection:
As a Democratic respondent is more liberal, Republicans are seen as more
conservative; As a Republican respondent is more conservative, Democrats are
seen as more liberal. Positive Projection to the ingroup only occurred among
Republicans: As a Republican respondent is more conservative; Republicans are
seen as more conservative. Looking at subjective self-knowledge, higher values
among both Republicans and Democrats is associated with the tendency to see
the outgroup party as more polarized (Democrats as more liberal and
Republicans as more conservative).
1988 Super Tuesday ANES Dataset
The second model used data from the 1988 Super Tuesday ANES in
which respondents were asked for their own positions on political ideology, from
very liberal to very conservative (see Appendix R) as well
Fig
ure
20
a. 1
98
8 S
upe
r T
ue
sda
y A
NE
S S
tructu
ral E
qu
ation
Mod
el 1
(D
em
ocra
t V
ote
rs):
M
od
el of
De
mo
cra
tic
Pa
rty v
ote
rs’ se
lf-r
atin
gs o
n p
olit
ica
l id
eo
logy a
nd
th
eir s
elf-r
ate
d p
olit
ica
l kn
ow
led
ge
eff
ect o
n p
roje
ctio
n a
nd
p
ola
riza
tio
n o
f th
e D
em
ocra
tic a
nd R
epu
blic
an
Pa
rtie
s (
***
= p <
.00
01
).
Self R
ate
d
Ideolo
gy
1.0
0
Se
lfe
11
.00
Self-K
now
ledg
e.5
8
Inte
restP
ap
er
e4
.76
.19
Inte
restP
res
e5
.44
.36
Inte
restG
ov
e6
.60
.20
Mean D
em
.32
Go
ree
8
.57
.46
Du
kakis
e9
.68
.22
Hart
e1
0.4
6.3
3
Bab
bitt
e1
1.5
7
.25
Jackso
ne
12
.50
.39
Ge
ph
ard
te
13
.62
.40
Sim
on
e1
4
.63
.06
Mean R
ep
.62
Bu
sh
e1
5
.79
.49
Haig
e1
6
.70
.11
Ro
be
rtso
ne
17
.33
.27
Do
lee
18
.52
.27
Ke
mp
e1
9
.52
.32
Du
po
nt
e2
0
.56
.64
Re
ag
an
e2
1
.80
-.1
3
e2
2
e2
3
.17
-.2
3.35 -.
15
.56
Inte
restT
Ve
24
.75
-.1
0
***
-.2
5 *
**
***
*n
s
***
99
Fig
ure
20
b. 1
98
8 S
upe
r T
ue
sda
y A
NE
S S
tructu
ral E
qu
ation
Mod
el 1
(R
ep
ub
lica
n V
ote
rs):
M
od
el of
Re
pu
blic
an
Pa
rty v
ote
rs’ se
lf-r
atin
gs o
n p
olit
ica
l id
eo
logy a
nd
th
eir s
elf-r
ate
d p
olit
ica
l kn
ow
led
ge
eff
ect o
n p
roje
ctio
n a
nd
p
ola
riza
tio
n o
f th
e D
em
ocra
tic a
nd R
epu
blic
an
Pa
rtie
s (
***
= p <
.00
01
).
Self R
ate
d
Ideolo
gy
1.0
0
Se
lfe
11
.00
Self-K
now
ledg
e.5
4
Inte
restP
ap
er
e4
.73
.17
Inte
restP
res
e5
.41
.36
Inte
restG
ov
e6
.60
.13
Mean D
em
.32
Go
ree
8
.57
.43
Du
kakis
e9
.66
.31
Hart
e1
0.5
6.3
6
Bab
bitt
e1
1.6
0
.35
Jackso
ne
12
.59
.47
Ge
ph
ard
te
13
.69
.45
Sim
on
e1
4
.67
.11
Mean R
ep
.51
Bu
sh
e1
5
.71
.32
Haig
e1
6
.56
.07
Ro
be
rtso
ne
17
.26
.19
Do
lee
18
.43
.18
Ke
mp
e1
9
.42
.25
Du
po
nt
e2
0
.50
.67
Re
ag
an
e2
1
.82
.25
e2
2
e2
3
.19
-.2
5-.2
0 .23
.53
Inte
restT
Ve
24
.73
-.2
8
-.2
2 *
**
***
*
*** ***
**
100
101
as the positions that they perceived Democrats and Republicans to have on
ideology (seven Democrats and seven Republicans).
The model, as depicted in figures 20a and 20b, has four latent variables,
two exogenous and two endogenous. The exogenous ones are own ideology
(with the single indicator and no variance on its error term) and own political
knowledge, measuring this with four indicators (Appendix Q). The latent
endogenous variables were perception of the ideology of the Democrats and
perception of the ideology of the Republicans, using the perceived ideology of
each candidate as separate indicators.
The structural part of the model estimates the partial effects of the two
latent exogenous variables (own ideology and subjective knowledge) on the two
latent endogenous variables (perceived Democratic ideology and perceived
Republican ideology), allowing the disturbances to these two endogenous latent
variables to be correlated. A multiple group analysis was conducted, estimating
the model simultaneously for respondents who identified themselves as
Democrats and those who self-identified as Republicans.
I first estimated this model on both groups with no between group
constraints on the parameter estimates. Although the resulting goodness of fit
Chi square was highly significant, 26.6262
294 =χ , other measures of goodness-of-
fit that are less influenced by the large sample size used in these analyses
suggest that the model is reasonably consistent with the data, CFI = .864,
RMSEA =.030. Given this, our next step was to impose measurement invariance
between the two groups, i.e., forcing all of the loadings of the indicators on the
102
latent variables for the two groups to be equal between groups. This condition of
measurement invariance is a necessary one in order to compare structural
coefficients between the two groups. The fit indices of the resulting model were
very similar to the model that did not impose measurement invariance,
15.6522
309 =χ , CFI = .860, RMSEA = .030. A comparison of the Chi-squares for
these two models indicates that the measurement invariance model does not fit
the data significantly less well than the unconstrained, model 89.252
80 =∆χ , p >
.50.
Our final step was to constrain the ingroup and outgroup projection paths
to be equal to each other. Thus, the Self-Ideology to Democrat Ideology path for
Democrat subjects was constrained to be equal to the Republican subjects’ Self-
Ideology to Republican Ideology path (ingroup projection) and the Democrat
subjects’ subjects’ Self-Ideology to Republican Ideology path was constrained to
be equal to the Republican subjects’ Self-Ideology to Democrat Ideology path
(outgroup projection). Additionally, the two paths from the Self-Knowledge latent
variable to Democrat Ideology and Republican Ideology were constrained to be
equal for both Democrat and Republican subject. The fit indices of the resulting
model were very similar to the measurement invariance model, 19.6552
313 =χ , CFI
= .860, RMSEA = .030. A comparison of the Chi-squares for these two models
indicates that the measurement invariance model does not fit the data
significantly less well than the unconstrained model, 04.32
4 =∆χ , p > .50.
In Table 3 are the loading coefficients, the standardized loadings, the
structural coefficients (with standardized values) and in Table 4 all standardized
Tab
le 3
. 19
88 A
NE
S: Lo
ad
ing a
nd
str
uctu
ral co
eff
icie
nts
: U
nsta
nd
ard
ize
d a
nd
sta
nda
rdiz
ed
estim
ate
s fo
r D
em
ocra
t (le
ft)
an
d R
ep
ub
lica
n (
Rig
ht)
re
sp
on
den
ts. *
** = p <
.0
00
1.
D
em
ocra
t R
espon
den
ts
Repu
blic
an
Respon
den
ts
U
nsta
ndard
ized
Estim
ate
S
tandard
ized
Estim
ate
P
U
nsta
ndard
ized
Estim
ate
S
tandard
ized
Estim
ate
P
Mean R
ep
<--
S
elf-K
now
ledge
0.2
23
0.1
59
***
0.2
23
0.1
99
***
Mean D
em
<
--
Self-K
now
ledge
-0.2
1
-0.2
51
***
-0.2
1
-0.2
23
***
Mean D
em
<
--
Self-R
ating
0.1
48
0.3
49
***
-0.1
1
-0.2
02
***
Mean R
ep
<--
S
elf-R
ating
-0.1
1
-0.1
55
***
0.1
48
0.2
27
***
Lib
Con1
<--
S
elf-R
ating
1
1
1
1
Inte
restT
V
<--
S
elf-K
now
ledge
1
0.7
47
1
0.7
29
Inte
restP
aper
<--
S
elf-K
now
ledge
1.0
16
0.7
65
***
1.0
16
0.7
35
***
Inte
restP
res
<--
S
elf-K
now
ledge
0.5
43
0.4
41
***
0.5
43
0.4
14
***
Inte
restG
ov
<--
S
elf-K
now
ledge
0.6
99
0.6
03
***
0.6
99
0.6
**
*
LC
Gore
1
<--
M
ean D
em
1
0.5
67
1
0.5
64
LC
Duk1
<--
M
ean D
em
1.3
49
0.6
79
***
1.3
49
0.6
56
***
LC
Hart
1
<--
M
ean D
em
1.0
65
0.4
66
***
1.0
65
0.5
53
***
LC
Bab1
<--
M
ean D
em
0.9
86
0.5
76
***
0.9
86
0.5
99
***
LC
Jack1
<--
M
ean D
em
1.3
15
0.5
03
***
1.3
15
0.5
87
***
LC
Gep1
<--
M
ean D
em
1.1
57
0.6
26
***
1.1
57
0.6
85
***
LC
Sim
on1
<--
M
ean D
em
1.3
76
0.6
35
***
1.3
76
0.6
7
***
LC
Bush1
<--
M
ean R
ep
1
0.7
89
1
0.7
13
LC
Haig
1
<--
M
ean R
ep
1.0
81
0.7
02
***
1.0
81
0.5
65
***
LC
Rob1
<--
M
ean R
ep
0.4
95
0.3
34
***
0.4
95
0.2
65
***
LC
Dole
1
<--
M
ean R
ep
0.5
96
0.5
16
***
0.5
96
0.4
35
***
LC
Kem
p1
<--
M
ean R
ep
0.6
79
0.5
14
***
0.6
79
0.4
25
***
LC
Dupont1
<
--
Mean R
ep
0.8
13
0.5
61
***
0.8
13
0.5
**
*
LC
Reag1
<--
M
ean R
ep
1.2
33
0.7
99
***
1.2
33
0.8
16
***
103
104
residual covariances from this model with imposed measurement invariances. As
the standardized loadings indicate, all indicators loaded significantly and highly
on their respective latent variables. The structural coefficients from own latent
ideology reveals significant projection from the self to ones’ own party among the
Republicans (Self-Ideology to Republican-Ideology, standardized value .227, p <
.001) and among the Democrats (Self-Ideology to Democrat-Ideology
standardized value .349, p < .001).
In the case of judgments of the other party, there is significant reverse
projection (i.e., contrast) in the case of both Republicans (Self-Ideology to
Democrat-Ideology, standardized value -.202, p < .001) and Democrats (Self-
Ideology to Democrat-Ideology standardized value -.155, p = .001).
Table 4. 1988 ANES: Standardized Residual Covariances for Democrat (Left) and Republican (Right) respondents. *** = p < .0001.
Democrat Respondents Republican
Respondents
Covariance P Covariance P
Self-Knowledge <--> Self-Rating -0.167 0.012 0.246 ***
Dem-Ideology <--> Rep Ideology -0.067 0.142 -0.154 0.001
Turning to the impact of subjective self-knowledge, for both groups, the
more knowledgeable the respondent the more they saw Democrats as having
liberal ideologies (For Republicans, Self-Knowledge to Democrat-Ideology,
standardized value -.223, p < .001; For Democrats, Self-Knowledge to Democrat-
Ideology, standardized value -.251, p = .001). Additionally, for both groups, the
more knowledgeable the respondent the more they saw Republicans as having
105
conservative ideologies (For Republicans, Self-Knowledge to Democrat-Ideology,
standardized value .199, p < .001; For Democrats, Self-Knowledge to Democrat-
Ideology, standardized value .159, p = .001). Thus it appears that more
knowledge on the part of respondents is associated with seeing both the ingroup
and the outgroup party as more extreme in its ideological beliefs.
In sum, in perceiving the outgroup, there is significant reverse projection:
As a Democratic respondent is more liberal, Republicans are seen as more
conservative; As a Republican respondent is more conservative, Democrats are
seen as more liberal. Positive Projection to the ingroup occurred among both
Democrats and Republicans: as a Republican respondent is more conservative,
Republicans are seen as more conservative and as a Democrat respondent is
more liberal, Democrats are seen as more liberal. Looking at subjective self-
knowledge, higher values among both Republicans and Democrats are
associated with the tendency to see both parties as more polarized (Democrats
as more liberal and Republicans as more conservative).
Discussion
The two models present a consistent view about projection and
polarization. In general the two models demonstrated the tendency of the
respondents to project their own political positions - both ideological and issue-
specific - towards their own political party. Additionally, the respondents
contrasted the outgroup party’s ideological position from their own ideological
position.
106
In the 1988 model the respondents from both political parties projected
their own ideology onto their ingroup, and contrasted their ideological position to
the outgroup. The 1980 model had slightly different results, in that the Democrat
subjects did not show ideological projection towards their ingroup. I believe
these differences between the models can be explained by the different
measures that made up the Democrat and Republican Ideology latent variables
in each. In the 1980 model the latent variables were composed of multiple
attitude issues across a few target candidates, while the 1988 model the latent
variables were made up of a single indicator of ideology across seven target
candidates. The covariances between the issues were controlled for in the 1980
ANES, which led to the lack of projection towards the ingroup for Democrat
respondents. Additionally, it is possible that Democrats had a much more varied
set of personal issue stands, which were not always liberal (Hayes, Murphy,
Johnson, & Bowler, 2008).
In general increased political knowledge led to polarization of the two
parties ideological position, by increasing perceptions of ideological extremity of
both the ingroup and the outgroup. This is interesting because it demonstrates
that more knowledgeable voters increased their perception of political
polarization by changing their impressions of the ideological extremity of both
parties, not merely the outgroup. In the 1988 model knowledgeable respondents
from both parties saw both parties as more extreme. In the 1980 ANES dataset
there were slightly different results. Specifically the Republican respondents’
self-knowledge did not increase perceived extremity of the Republican targets.
107
Again this difference between the models could be how the ideology was
measured in each. It seems likely that overall ideology, as measured in the 1988
model was more susceptible to perceptions of extremity, while the 1980 ideology
measure, made up of multiple attitudes regressed more towards the mean.
108
Chapter 5:
General Discussion
The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the influence of different
types of information on perception of political candidates. The type and amount
of information that individual voters have access to is large and complex. How
much information voters think they have is also very flexible; what one voter
thinks of as being well informed, another may not. The first two studies were
designed to control the amount and type of information that was available, and
examine how it impacted impressions. In the final study I did not have this
control; I had to use the voter’s opinion of their political knowledge. Both the
laboratory and survey studies gave me an interesting picture of information’s role
in political perceptions.
Before voters know anything about a specific political candidate’s position
on an issue they know their own position. Both the laboratory and survey studies
supported previous work that the voter’s own political position, both ideologically
and issue-specific, impact how they perceive the candidates (Brent & Granberg,
1982; Feldman & Conover, 1983; Judd, Kenny, & Krosnick, 1983; Kinder, 1978;
Krosnick, 1990). Specifically, people project their own positions onto candidates
from their ingroup, and occasionally contrast the outgroup candidates. In Study
One neither relevancy nor diagnosticity influenced the amount the subjects
projected their own attitudes. Prior to learning individuating information about the
candidates the subjects contrasted the outgroup candidates’ position from the
subject’s own. There was also contrast in the ANES data, which suggests that
109
when individuating information about the candidates is low voters rely more on
their heuristics, one of which is to use their own position as an anchor, projecting
towards the ingroup and contrasting the outgroup. Study Two demonstrated that
candidate consistency, but not popularity increases projection to an ingroup
candidate. These data support Conover and Feldman’s (1982) argument that
projection is a central process in political impression formation, often used as a
heuristic when information about the candidate is low or ambiguous.
These results inform an important debate within political science about the
type and amount of information that a candidate should present to the public
during a campaign. Early political scientists have pointed out the tendency of
politicians to adopt ambiguous issue positions (Downs, 1957; Key, 1958), while
other work has demonstrated that politicians pander to their audience, modifying
their position to suit public opinion (Barone, 1997;Lippmann, 1955; Page, 1978).
As discussed earlier, many voters want to select a candidate that shares their
position on important issues, with theorists viewing this type of voting as rational
(Downs, 1957). The projection results from Study One would suggest that issue
ambiguity is the best strategy for candidates to adopt; the voter’s stereotypic
views of where the parties stand on the issues overwhelms individuating
information about the candidates (Conover, 1981), especially when the
information is irrelevant or ambiguous. This is especially true when the audience
are not members of the candidate’s own political party. When subjects in Study
One learned information about the outgroup candidate that was not diagnostic of
the candidate’s position, it was either ambiguous or irrelevant, the voters’
110
contrast of the outgroup candidates’ positions from the subject’s own position
disappeared. In the present study, ambiguity did not significantly impact the
subjects’ level of projection towards ingroup candidates. Since there is a strong
and reliable relationship between perceptions of attitude similarity and voting
behavior (Quist & Crano, 2003) and ambiguity increases or maintains projection
of attitude position, ambiguity seems the best strategy for candidates to adopt.
One question not addressed in the present set of studies is how ambiguity
would impact projection within a primary election, when the goal of the
candidates is to individuate oneself from other within-party candidates. It is
possible that ambiguity would increase projection in primary elections as well as
when comparing both ingroup and outgroup candidates. It is also possible that
ambiguity would result in the voter regressing the candidate’s position towards
the middle, which may or may not increase projection depending on the voter’s
own position on the issue. This is an important question and worthy of further
exploration.
The survey study demonstrated how the voter’s own political ideology
influences how differently they see political candidates from each party. The
more ideologically extreme the voters were the more polarized they perceived
the two political parties to be. The survey study also revealed that voters who
considered themselves to be more knowledgeable about politics also perceived
greater political polarization between the parties. In Study One there was less
polarization after the subjects received relevant-undiagnostic and irrelevant
(marginal) information about the candidates. Much of the candidate information
111
presented in the media is ambiguous (Waldman & Jamieson, 2003), is focused
on personality rather than position (Graber, 1984; Patterson, 1980), and reports
more on the “horserace” aspect of the campaign than candidate positions
(Bartels, 1988). Thus, voters who feel they are more informed about politics may
not necessarily be better informed about the candidates’ positions or even about
the candidates in general. In the laboratory the information was all individuating,
that is, it gave the subject a better picture of the candidate. Even in Study One,
when the information was irrelevant to the candidates’ attitude positions it still
individuated the candidates, which in turn “diluted” the effect of party position
(Nisbett, Zukier, & Lemley, 1981). This dilution led to decreased polarization of
the two parties, and a non-significant decrease in projection towards ingroup
candidates. However, when the information about the candidate was diagnostic
of their political positions and in line with stereotypes about their party’s position,
the subjects maintained the same level of polarization as they did when all they
had was the candidates’ names, pictures, and political party. So while
knowledge about a candidate’s actual position may maintain or increase
perceptions of party extremity, individuating information about political candidates
that is irrelevant or undiagnostic seems to decrease polarization.
As mentioned in the introduction both political deliberation (Sunstein,
2002) and political primaries (Raven & Gallo, 1965) increase polarization. The
decrease in polarization of candidates from the opposing parties after learning
either irrelevant or ambiguous information about the candidates in Study One
that this increase in polarization during deliberation and primaries is due more to
112
stereotypic views of the political parties and less to do with individuating
information about the candidates. However, when the information about the
candidates’ positions were clear, polarization remained high which supports
findings that repeated expression of each parties’ often diametrically opposed
position increases polarization (Stasavage, 2007).
Directionally, the subjects relied less on their stereotypes about the groups
when they learned diagnostic information about the candidates, resulting in less
consensus. Overall, the Democrats had stronger stereotypes about the parties,
agreeing with each other more than the Republicans did, however this was less
true for subjects who learned relevant and diagnostic information. It seems that
Democrats had a more coherent schema for the political positions of each party
on political issues, which they applied when the information was ambiguous. It
could be that Democrats used general party ideology to form impressions of
specific candidates on specific issues more than the Republicans did (Waldman
& Jamieson, 2002).
How affiliated voters were to their political parties influenced how they
used the candidate’s popularity and attitude consistency information. Strongly
affiliated voters (in the study only Democrat subjects were examined) preferred a
candidate that held attitudes that were consistent with the party ideology; that is,
liberal Democrats. Directionally when the voter was strongly affiliated and the
ingroup candidate was consistent, popularity mattered less, however, when the
candidate was inconsistent the more popular candidate was preferred. Less
affiliated voters preferred the outsider, the unpopular-inconsistent candidate. It
113
seems they identified with the candidate that crossed the party-line on some
issues and that wasn’t supported by the majority of their fellow party members.
Less affiliated voters may have held inconsistent views on some issues and may
have preferred a candidate that demonstrated ideological flexibility. Why they did
not also support the inconsistent candidate when he was popular is puzzling. It
could be that the less affiliated subjects were less motivated to pay attention to
the statements about the candidates and the task in general. Regardless of how
affiliated voters were to their political party, they project more towards consistent
political candidates than inconsistent ones. So while in explicit measure of liking,
similarity, and voting likelihood the lower affiliated subjects preferred an
inconsistent-unpopular candidate, they still tended to project their own attitudes
more on the consistent candidates.
How people use information to form impressions about other people is an
important question on its own. In the political domain it has even more apparent
importance; voters’ impressions of political candidates can influence how they
vote. Selecting a political candidate who shares our political attitudes could be
seen as the most rational way to vote (Downs, 1957; Shapiro, 1969). If that is
true, then how people use information to form, maintain, and change their
impressions of political candidates can in turn inform researchers about how
people vote. In the end voting is the average person’s main form of political
expression. Since I began this dissertation with a quote by one of our nation’s
greatest political thinkers about the importance of voting, it is appropriate to end
with another.
114
“The rational and peacable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.”
Thomas Jefferson.
115
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Appendix A:
Photographs of Political Candidates
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Appendix B:
Study One Politically Irrelevant Statements 1- Republican Steven Johnson
For his last vacation Steven Johnson took a weeklong horseback tour of Argentina. He enjoys tennis, reading and can often be seen running with his two dogs Jack and Pepper. His favorite song is “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. Steven Johnson’s favorite quote is by Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis: “Life is about timing”. 2 – Democrat William McCartell
William McCartell is an avid golfer and also enjoys refurbishing antique furniture. His favorite song is “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen. His last vacation was scuba-diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. William McCartell’s favorite quote is “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do” by inventor Henry Ford. 3 – Republican Michael Larson
Michael Larson’s favorite song is Tony Bennett’s “Blue Velvet”. He has been waterskiing for most of his life and recently won an amateur competition. His favorite quote is by Albert Einstein, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”. He recently spent a week in Manhattan enjoying great food a number of Broadway plays. 4 – Democrat Stan Martin
Stan Martin’s favorite quote is “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact”, by psychologist and philosopher William James. His last vacation was exploring the Mayan ruins south of Mexico City. Stan Martin is a member of a local softball team, and until recently played center for a local over-40 hockey team. His favorite song is “Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash. 5 – Republican David Herring David Herring enjoys all things nautical, including sailing, rowing, and building model boats. His most recent vacation was a tour of the America South, exploring historical sights and enjoying local food and music. David Herring’s favorite song is “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles, and his favorite quote is “A prudent question is one-half of wisdom”, by the chemist Francis Bacon.
6 – Democrat James Nelson
James Nelson recently went on a weekend Napa Valley wine tour, staying in Bed and Breakfasts. His favorite song is “You Mean Everything to Me” by Neil Sedaka. James Nelson enjoys running and has taken part in a number of half-marathons. His favorite quote is “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result”, by novelist, playwright, and poet Oscar Wilde. 7 – Republican Dean Hayes
Dean Hayes favorite quote is by chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” His favorite song is “Slip Slidin Away” by Paul Simon. Dean Hayes is a musician who co-founded a local jazz quartet. He recently took a California golfing vacation, including two days at Pebble Beach. 8 – Democrat Gregory Davis Gregory Davis took his last vacation sailing the Greek Isles on a 45 foot sloop with friends and family. His favorite quote is “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up some place else”, by Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. He enjoys spending time outdoors; fishing, hiking, and camping. His favorite song is “The Best is Yet to Come”, by Frank Sinatra.
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Appendix C:
Study One Politically Relevant-Undiagnostic Statements 1- Republican Steven Johnson In the past few years our country has faced many challenges. We now have a chance to move ahead with confidence, resolve, and hope. We need a candidate who will maintain stability in an unstable time. Steven Johnson is that candidate. He has a plan to create jobs, and improve
education. Steven Johnson, keeping our country safe and secure. 2 – Democrat William McCartell Our nation needs to re-examine its priorities. We are at a cross-road in our history and need a leader with the vision to guide us to a better future. William McCartell is the leader to do it. He has plans to refocus our country’s priorities on job creation, education, and health care. William McCartell, defending America. 3 – Republican Dean Hayes Staying healthy is a concern that every American has. We need to know that if we get sick we will receive the care we need. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Dean Hayes has plans to change our health care system so that every American will receive the health care he or she needs. Dean Hayes cares. 4 – Democrat Gregory Davis It is a travesty that in the most advanced country in the world there are people without health care. We need to develop a system in which every American can receive medical treatment. His goal is to insure that no American will have to go without. He is committed to improving social security. Gregory Davis is ready to help heal America. 5 – Republican Michael Larson Our country is the economic power-house of the world. We need leaders who will continue to carry on this tradition. Michael Larson will ensure that our country’s economy remains strong and. He understands the necessity of tightening our country’s borders and increasing national security spending. He is a strong supporter of our men and women serving overseas. Michael Larson is a leader for today’s world. 6 – Democrat Stan Martin Now is the time to invest in our nation’s future. We need leaders dedicated to strengthening our economy. Stan Martin is one of those leaders. He is committed to investing in education and health care. He will protect our national security and defend our interests oversea. Stan Martin supports initiatives to increase governmental support of our servicemen and women. Together we can move America forward. 7 – Republican David Herring Our world is changing. We are nearing a time when important decisions about our use of energy will need to be made. David Herring is prepared to make those tough choices and has a plan for decreasing our reliance on foreign oil. He has plans for improving health care and restructuring social security. He plans to improve education and the tax system. David Herring, steady leadership in times of change. 8 – Democrat James Nelson Energy is the lifeblood of our country. Without it we would stop moving ahead. Our country has become overly reliant on foreign oil. James Nelson has outlined a policy to increase our energy independence. He has plans to revitalize our education system and create a more equitable tax system. James Nelson, dedication, integrity, focus.
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Appendix D:
Study One Politically Relevant-Diagnostic Statements Note: The bolded statements are diagnostic, stereotype-consistent positions on the issues. The statements in the relevant-undiagnostic condition (Appendix C) are identical, with the exception that the bolded statements are left out. The judges will not see the bolding.
1- Republican Steven Johnson (National Security) In the past few years our country has faced many challenges. We now have a chance to move ahead with confidence, resolve, and hope. We need a candidate who will maintain stability in an unstable time. Steven Johnson is that candidate. He is dedicated to protecting our country and keeping our families safe, by increasing the military budget to combat terrorism overseas. He has a plan to create jobs, improve education, and lower the cost of health car. He has a plan to decrease health care costs by making it more difficult to bring frivolous law-suits against doctors and HMOs. Steven Johnson, keeping our country safe and secure.
2 – Democrat William McCartell (National Security) Our nation needs to re-examine its priorities. We are at a cross-road in our history and need a leader with the vision to guide us to a better future. William McCartell is the leader to do it. He has plans to refocus our country’s priorities on job creation, education, and health care. He plans to increase Medicare coverage, and has outlined a universal health care plan. He will focus on keeping our families and our country safe, by bringing estranged nations such as Syria and Iran to the bargaining table. William McCartell, defending America. 3 – Republican Michael Larson (Economy) Our country is the economic power-house of the world. We need leaders who will continue to carry on this tradition. Michael Larson will ensure that our country’s economy remains strong and competitive by helping large businesses that are the backbone of our economy and making the recent tax cuts permanent. He understands the necessity of tightening our country’s borders and increasing national security spending. He is a strong supporter of our men and women serving overseas. He will improve our energy problems by increasing the use of America’s abundant coal resources. Michael Larson is a leader for today’s world.
4 – Democrat Stan Martin (Economy) Now is the time to invest in our nation’s future. We need leaders dedicated to strengthening our economy, by focusing on the under-taxation of large corporations, and increasing tax breaks for the lower and middle classes. Stan Martin is one of those leaders. He will deal with our energy crisis by increasing the use of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power. He is committed to investing in education and health care. He will protect our national security and defend our interests oversea. Stan Martin supports initiatives to increase governmental support of our servicemen and women. Together we can move America forward. 5 – Republican David Herring (Energy) Our world is changing. We are nearing a time when important decisions about our use of energy will need to be made. David Herring is prepared to make those tough choices and has a plan for decreasing our reliance on foreign oil by increasing domestic oil exploration and coal energy capability. He has plans for improving health care and restructuring social security. He will protect our nation’s security by increasing the budget for the Armed Services and research into new technologies to protect the American military overseas. David Herring,
steady leadership in times of change. 6 – Democrat James Nelson (Energy)
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Energy is the lifeblood of our country. Without it we would stop moving ahead. Our country has become overly reliant on foreign oil. James Nelson has outlined a policy to increase our energy independence by relying more on alternative renewable energy sources including wind and solar power and seriously restricting oil and gas drilling. He is committed to improving social security and has a plan for making health care available to all Americans. He will redirect money to overseas goodwill projects by focusing on international aid to underdeveloped countries. James Nelson, dedication, integrity, focus.
7 – Republican Dean Hayes (Health Care) Staying healthy is a concern that every American has. We need to know that if we get sick we will receive the care we need. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Dean Hayes has plans to change our health care system so that every American will receive the health care he or she needs, by allowing Americans to deduct health care costs from their income tax. He plans to improve education and the tax system, by abolishing the Estate Tax and decreasing taxes across the board which will have a trickle down effect on the nation’s economy. Dean Hayes cares. 8 – Democrat Gregory Davis (Health Care) It is a travesty that in the most advanced country in the world there are people without health care. We need to develop a system in which every American can receive medical treatment. Gregory Davis has a plan to implement a Universal Health care system and equal drug coverage. His goal is to insure that no American will have to go without. He has plans to revitalize our education system and create a more equitable tax system, by making the tax system more progressive by increasing taxation of the very rich and decreasing corporate loopholes. Gregory Davis is ready to help heal America.
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Appendix E:
Study One Self Rating Questionnaire
Section 1: Self-ratings of Personality Traits
Using the scale below, rate yourself on each of the following traits. To what extent would you use each trait to describe this yourself? Circle the number that you feel best describes yourself.
Extroverted [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Shy
Disagreeable [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Agreeable
Trustworthy [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Untrustworthy
Self-Doubting [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Self-Confident
Knowledgeable [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Uninformed
Reserved [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Outgoing
Good Natured [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Irritable
Irresponsible [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Responsible
Self-Assured [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Insecure
Unintelligent [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Intelligent
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Section 2: Political Attitudes, Ideology, and Knowledge. Below are some statements of possible attitudes for several currently important issues. To what
extent do you agree or disagree with each attitude statement? Use the scale below in making
your judgments.
Strongly Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Strongly Agree
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _________ I support a woman’s right to abortion on demand. _________ It is important to support equal rights for gays and lesbians. _________ There should be no limitations on the right to bear arms. _________ The United States should engage in more diplomatic discussions rather than using the military _________ HMOs ensure that American health care stays competitive with the rest of the world. _________ The government should move away from oil and invest in alternative energy. _________ I support decreasing taxes on large corporations to increase the nation’s economic vitality. _________ Our country needs to invest in a universal health care plan. _________ I view abortion as the taking of a human life. _________ Marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. _________ Limits on gun sales (including handguns) should be enacted into law. _________ The U.S. should drill almost all of its available oil resources. _________ I support increased spending to support the government’s overseas military operations. _________ I believe that tax breaks for big-business hurt the average American.
137
Please think about the your overall political stand. To what extent would you say that you are conservative versus liberal? (circle a number on the scale below) Very Conservative
Very
Liberal
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 What is your political affiliation? Democrat Republican Independent No Affiliation How strongly do you identify with your political party? Very Weakly
Very Strongly
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How knowledgeable are you about politics Very Unknowledgeable
Very Knowledgeable
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How interested are you in politics? Very Interested
Not at all Interested
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
138
Appendix F:
Study One Rating of Political Candidates Questionnaire
Section 1: Ratings of Candidates’ Personality Traits
Steven Johnson
Republican
Using the scale below, rate the candidate on each of the following traits. To what extent would you use each trait to describe this candidate? Circle the number that you feel best describes the candidate.
Extroverted [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Shy
Disagreeable [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Agreeable
Trustworthy [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Untrustworthy
Self-Doubting [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Self-Confident
Knowledgeable [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Uninformed
Reserved [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Outgoing
Good Natured [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Irritable
Irresponsible [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Responsible
Self-Assured [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Insecure
Unintelligent [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Intelligent
139
Section 2: Political Attitudes, Ideology, and Knowledge. Below are some statements of possible attitudes for several currently important issues. To what extent do you believe this candidate would agree or disagree with each attitude statement? Use the scale below in making your judgments. Strongly Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Strongly Agree
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _________ I support a woman’s right to abortion on demand. _________ It is important to support equal rights for gays and lesbians. _________ There should be no limitations on the right to bear arms. _________ The United States should engage in more diplomatic discussions rather than using the military _________ HMOs ensure that American health care stays competitive with the rest of the world. _________ The government should move away from oil and invest in alternative energy. _________ I support decreasing taxes on large corporations to increase the nation’s economic vitality. _________ Our country needs to invest in a universal health care plan. _________ I view abortion as the taking of a human life. _________ Marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. _________ Limits on gun sales (including handguns) should be enacted into law. _________ The U.S. should drill almost all of its available oil resources. _________ I support increased spending to support the government’s overseas military operations. _________ I believe that tax breaks for big-business hurt the average American. .
140
How likely would it be for you to vote for this candidate? Very Unlikely
Very
Likely
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Please think about the candidate’s overall political stand. To what extent would you say that he is conservative versus liberal? (circle a number on the scale below) Very Conservative
Very
Liberal
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How strongly affiliated (attached) to his political party? Not at all Affiliated
Very
Affiliated
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How attractive do you think this candidate is? Very Unattractive
Very
Attractive
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How much do you like this candidate? Dislike Very Much
Neither Like or Dislike
Like
Very Much ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
In general how similar do you think this candidate is to you? Very Dissimilar
Neither Similar or Dissimilar
Very
Similar
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
141
Appendix G:
Study Two Target. Popular:
Stephen Johnson
Democrat
Recently Democrat voters in Stephen
Johnson’s home district were polled
about whom they planned to vote for
in the upcoming Congressional primary.
79 percent of registered Democrats stated
they would vote for Stephen Johnson. The
next most popular Democrat candidate
received only 6 percent support.
Unpopular:
Stephen Johnson
Democrat
Recently Democrat voters in Stephen
Johnson’s home district were polled
about whom they planned to vote for
in the upcoming Congressional primary.
Only 6 percent of registered Democrats
stated they would vote for Stephen Johnson.
The most popular Democrat candidate
received 79 percent support.
142
Appendix H:
Study Two Consistent Target Information
Stephen Johnson
Democrat
- Voted yes on a measure that
would allow current illegal aliens
the opportunity to participant in
Social Security.
- Wants to place restrictions on
assault weapons and ammunition
types.
- For his last vacation Stephen
Johnson took a weeklong
horseback tour of Argentina.
- Voted yes to a bill requiring the
CIA to report on Guantanamo
detainees’ condition and
interrogation methods.
Stephen Johnson
Democrat
- Stephen Johnson enjoys tennis,
reading and can often be seen
running with his two dogs Jack and
Pepper.
-Wants to invest money into clean
energy alternatives such as solar
and wind, not dirty technology like
nuclear.
- Voted no on a measure that
would subject federal employees to
random drug tests.
- His favorite song is “Good
Vibrations” by the Beach Boys.
- Feels that we need a
Constitutional amendment
protecting the right of a woman to
have an abortion.
143
Appendix I:
Study Two Inconsistent Target Information
Note: Statements in bold are the inconsistent statements. All other statements are identical to the statements for the consistent target.
Stephen Johnson
Democrat
- Voted yes on a measure that
would allow current illegal aliens
the opportunity to participant in
Social Security.
- Opposes restrictions on
assault weapons and
ammunition types.
- For his last vacation Stephen
Johnson took a weeklong
horseback tour of Argentina.
- Voted yes to a bill requiring the
CIA to report on Guantanamo
detainees’ condition and
interrogation methods.
Stephen Johnson
Democrat
- Stephen Johnson enjoys tennis,
reading and can often be seen
running with his two dogs Jack and
Pepper.
- Wants to invest money into
efficient energy alternatives
such as nuclear, not inefficient
ones like solar and wind.
- Voted no on a measure that
would subject federal employees to
random drug tests.
- His favorite song is “Good
Vibrations” by the Beach Boys.
- Feels that we need a
Constitutional amendment
defining life from conception.
144
Appendix J:
Study Two Self Rating Questionnaire
Below are some statements of possible attitudes for several currently important issues. To what
extent do you agree or disagree with each attitude statement? Use the scale below in making
your judgments.
Strongly Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Strongly Agree
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _________ I support a woman’s right to abortion on demand. _________ It is important to support equal rights for gays and lesbians. _________ Poverty is a large problem in our country and should be addressed by governmental support. _________ There should be no limitations on the right to bear arms. _________ The United States should engage in more diplomatic discussions rather than using the military _________ The death penalty is a deterrent for crime, and will decrease the number of murders. _________ Increased security at the expense of an individual’s rights is unacceptable. _________ Illegal immigrants are a drain on our resources, and every effort should be made to deport them. _________ HMOs ensure that American health care stays competitive with the rest of the world. _________ The government should move away from oil and invest in alternative energy. _________ I support decreasing taxes on large corporations to increase the nation’s economic vitality. _________ I do not mind surrendering some personal freedoms to ensure our country’s safety. _________ Charities not the government should be responsible for caring for the poor. _________ Our country needs to invest in a universal health care plan. _________ The death penalty is morally wrong, and does nothing to decrease crime.
145
Strongly Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Strongly Agree
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _________ I view abortion as the taking of a human life. _________ Drug use is a crime and should be treated as such with stiffer penalties. _________ I believe that immigrant workers should be allowed to become American citizens. _________ Marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. _________ Limits on gun sales (including handguns) should be enacted into law. _________ The U.S. should drill almost all of its available oil resources. _________ I support increased spending to support the government’s overseas military operations. _________ Non-violent drug offenders should receive treatment rather than prison time. _________ I believe that tax breaks for big-business hurt the average American. Below are some current political issues. Please indicate how important each of these issues is to
you. This question is not designed to determine what your position is on the following issues,
rather it is designed to determine how important you think the issues are. Use the scale below in
making your judgments.
Not at all Important
Very Important
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _____ Gun Laws _____ Taxation _____ Health Care _____ Drug War _____ Foreign Policy _____ Homeland Security _____ Illegal Immigration _____ Abortion _____ Gay Marriage _____ Death Penalty _____ Welfare _____ Energy
146
Please think about your overall political stand. To what extent would you say that you are conservative versus liberal? (Circle a number on the scale below) Very Conservative
Very
Liberal
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 What is your political affiliation?(Circle one) Democrat Republican Independent No Affiliation How strongly do you identify with your political party? Very Weakly
Very Strongly
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How knowledgeable are you about politics Very Unknowledgeable
Very Knowledgeable
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How interested are you in politics? Very Interested
Not at all Interested
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
147
Appendix K:
Study Two Rating of Political Candidates Questionnaire
Steven Johnson
Democrat Below are some statements of possible attitudes for several currently important issues. To what extent do you believe this candidate would agree or disagree with each attitude statement? Use the scale below in making your judgments. Strongly Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Strongly Agree
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _________ I support a woman’s right to abortion on demand. _________ It is important to support equal rights for gays and lesbians. _________ Poverty is a large problem in our country and should be addressed by governmental support. _________ There should be no limitations on the right to bear arms. _________ The United States should engage in more diplomatic discussions rather than using the military _________ The death penalty is a deterrent for crime, and will decrease the number of murders. _________ Increased security at the expense of an individual’s rights is unacceptable. _________ Illegal immigrants are a drain on our resources, and every effort should be made to deport them. _________ HMOs ensure that American health care stays competitive with the rest of the world. _________ The government should move away from oil and invest in alternative energy.
148
Strongly Disagree
Neither Agree nor Disagree
Strongly Agree
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 _________ I support decreasing taxes on large corporations to increase the nation’s economic vitality. _________ I do not mind surrendering some personal freedoms to ensure our country’s safety. _________ Charities not the government should be responsible for caring for the poor. _________ Our country needs to invest in a universal health care plan. _________ The death penalty is morally wrong, and does nothing to decrease crime. _________ I view abortion as the taking of a human life. _________ Drug use is a crime and should be treated as such with stiffer penalties. _________ I believe that immigrant workers should be allowed to become American citizens. _________ Marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. _________ Limits on gun sales (including handguns) should be enacted into law. _________ The U.S. should drill almost all of its available oil resources. _________ I support increased spending to support the government’s overseas military operations. _________ Non-violent drug offenders should receive treatment rather than prison time. _________ I believe that tax breaks for big-business hurt the average American.
149
For the following questions please circle your answers. How likely would it be for you to vote for this candidate? Very Unlikely
Very
Likely
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Please think about the candidate’s overall political stand. To what extent would you say that he is conservative versus liberal? (circle a number on the scale below) Very Conservative
Very
Liberal
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How strongly affiliated (attached) to his political party? Not at all Affiliated
Neither Similar nor Dissimilar
Very
Affiliated
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 How attractive do you think this candidate is? Very Unattractive
Very
Attractive
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
150
How much do you like this candidate? Dislike Very Much
Neither Like nor Dislike
Like
Very Much ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- ---------------
-- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
In general how similar do you think this candidate is to you? Very Dissimilar
Neither Similar nor Dissimilar
Very
Similar
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
What about this candidate would make you want to, or not want to vote for him? Use the
space provided below to answer.
151
Using the scale below, rate the candidate on each of the following traits. To what extent would you use each trait to describe this candidate? Circle the number that you feel best describes the candidate.
Extroverted [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Shy
Disagreeable [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Agreeable
Trustworthy [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Untrustworthy
Self-Doubting [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Self-Confident
Knowledgeable [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Uninformed
Reserved [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Outgoing
Good Natured [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Irritable
Irresponsible [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Responsible
Self-Assured [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Insecure
Unintelligent [---1---|---2---|---3---|---4---|---5---|---6---|---7---] Intelligent
152
Appendix L:
Study Two Recall Measure Next we are interested in what statements you can recall about the candidate. In the space below please list as many of the 9 statements that you read, one in each blank. Your recall does not need to be verbatim (word-for-word) but please try to be as complete and accurate in listing each of the 9 statements you read about the candidate as possible. 1) ______________________________________________________________ 2) ______________________________________________________________ 3) ______________________________________________________________ 4) ______________________________________________________________ 5) ______________________________________________________________ 6) ______________________________________________________________ 7) ______________________________________________________________ 8) ______________________________________________________________ 9)_______________________________________________________________
153
Appendix M:
Study Two Recognition Measure For each of the following statements please indicate whether or not this statement was used in describing the candidate. Say yes only if the statement matches exactly one used in describing the candidate, not just if you think he would agree with it. Finally, in the second space indicate how sure you are about this.
Not at all
Confident Somewhat Confident
Very Confident
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3
Yes/No _______ _______ Wants to do all he can to protect Roe vs. Wade. _______ _______ Has argued that medical marijuana issues should not be decided
between patients and doctors, but by the government. _______ _______ Wants to place restrictions on assault weapons and ammunition
types. _______ _______ Wants to invest money into efficient energy alternatives such as
nuclear, not inefficient ones like solar and wind. _______ _______ Voted yes to a bill requiring the CIA to report on Guantanamo
detainees’ condition and interrogation methods. _______ _______ Voted no on a measure that would allow current illegal aliens the
opportunity to participant in Social Security. _______ _______ Feels that we need a Constitutional amendment defining life from
conception. _______ _______ Believes we should strengthen existing gun restrictions, and
penalize criminal use. _______ _______ Has argued that medical marijuana issues should be decided
between patients and doctors, not the government. _______ _______ Voted yes on a proposition to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.
154
Not at all
Confident Somewhat Confident
Very Confident
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 Yes/No _______ _______ Voted yes on a bill to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone
and electronic communications. _______ _______ Voted yes on a measure that would give foreign “Guest Workers”
the chance to apply for American citizenship. _______ _______ Wants to do all he can to overturn Roe vs. Wade. _______ _______ Voted no on a measure that would subject federal employees to
random drug tests. _______ _______ Wants to invest money into clean energy alternatives such as solar
and wind, not dirty technology like nuclear. _______ _______ Believes we should repeal existing gun restrictions, but still
penalize criminal use. _______ _______ Voted yes on a measure that would allow current illegal aliens the
opportunity to participant in Social Security. _______ _______ Voted no to a bill requiring the CIA to report on Guantanamo
detainees’ condition and interrogation methods. _______ _______ Feels that we need a Constitutional amendment protecting the right
of a woman to have an abortion. _______ _______ Voted yes on a measure that would subject federal employees to
random drug tests. _______ _______ Opposes restrictions on assault weapons and ammunition types. _______ _______ Voted no on a bill to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and
electronic communications. _______ _______ Voted no on a measure that would give foreign “Guest Workers” the
chance to apply for American citizenship. _______ _______ Voted no on a proposition to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.
155
Appendix N:
Study Two Subtyping Measure Think about your impression of this political candidate. How typical or atypical are his attitudes and beliefs compared to your impression of the attitudes and beliefs of the other members of his political party
Very Typical
Neither Typical nor
Atypical
Very Atypical
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
-----------------
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
156
Appendix O:
Study Three 1980 ANES Political Issues Note: The first four measures were used in the 1980 ANES model based on the results of the factor analysis. The name of the variable is in brackets along with whether the variable was reverse scored or not. In the model the variables run from Liberal to Conservative. 1. (Job) Some people feel the government in Washington should see to it that every person has a job and a good standard of living. Others think the government should just let each person get ahead on his own. Where would you place yourself on this scale or haven't you thought much about this?
1. Government see to a job and good standard of living . .
7. Government let each person get ahead on own 2. (Aid) Some people feel that the government in Washington should make every effort to improve the social and economic position of blacks and other minority groups, even if it means giving them preferential treatment. Suppose these people are at one end of the scale at point number 1. Others feel that the government should not make any special effort to help minorities because they should help themselves. Suppose these people are at the other end at point 7. And, of course, some other people have opinions somewhere in between at points 2, 3, 4, Where would you place yourself on this scale or haven't you thought much about this?
1. Government should help minority groups . .
7. Minority groups should help themselves 3. (Serv, Reverse-scored) Some people think the government should provide fewer services, even in areas such as health and education, in order to reduce spending. Other people feel it is important for the government to continue the services it now provides even if it means no reduction in spending. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this?
1. Government should provide many fewer services; reduce spending a lot . .
7. Government should continue to provide services; no reduction in spending 4. (Unemp, Reverse-scored) Some people feel the federal government should take action to reduce the inflation rate, even if it means that unemployment would go up a lot. Others feel the government should take action to reduce the rate of unemployment, even if it means that inflation would go up a lot. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this? 1. Reduce inflation even if unemployment goes up a lot . .
157
7. Reduce unemployment even if inflation goes up a lot 5. Some people believe that we should spend much less money for defense. Others feel that defense spending should be greatly increased. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this?
1. Greatly decrease defense spending . .
7. Greatly increase defense spending 6. There has been some discussion about abortion during recent years. Which one of the opinions on this page best agrees with your view? You can just tell me the number of the opinion you choose.
1. By law, abortion should never be permitted. 2. The law should permit abortion only in case of rape, incest or when the woman's life is in danger. 3. The law should permit abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or danger to the woman's life, but only after the need for the abortion has been clearly established. 4. By law, a woman should always be able to obtain an abortion as a matter of personal choice.
7. Which of these statements best describes what you would like to see happen over the next three years? Over the next three years, federal income taxes 1. Should not be cut 2. Should be cut by 10% 3. Should be cut by 20% 4. Should be cut by 30% 5. Should be cut by more than 30% 0. Inap, coded 5,8 or 9 in q.k19 8. Dk 9. Na 8. Recently there has been a lot of talk about women's rights. Some people feel that women should have an equal role with men in running business, industry, and government. Others feel that women's place is in the home. Where would you place yourself on this scale or haven't you thought much about this?
1. Equal role . .
7. Women's place in home
158
Appendix P:
Study Three 1980 ANES Knowledge Measures Note: All measures reverse-scored in the 1980 ANES model.
1. (Info) Some people don't pay much attention to campaigns. How about you? Would you say that you have very much interested, somewhat interested, or not much interested in the political campaign so far this year? 1. Very much interested 3. Somewhat interested 5. Not much interested 2. (ObsInterest) Overall, how great was R's interest in interview? 1. Very high 2. Above average 3. Average 4. Below average 5. Very low 3. (Polls) During the last month, television, newspapers and magazines have reported the results of national polls which measure the popularity of the candidates running for. Have you read or heard any of the results from these national polls taken during the last month? Yes No 4. (Self-Int) Respondent's general level of information about politics and public affairs seemed: 1. Very high 2. Fairly high 3. Average 4. Fairly low 5. Very low
159
Appendix Q:
Study Three 1988 ANES Political Issues Note: All measures reverse-scored in the 1988 ANES model. 1. (InterestGov) Some people seem to follow what's going on in government and public affairs most of the time, whether there's an election going on or not. Others aren't that interested. Would you say you follow what's going on in government and public affairs most of the time, some of the time, only now and then, or hardly at all? 1. Most of the time 2. Some of the time 3. Only now and then 4. Hardly at all 2. (InterestPres) How about the presidential campaign? Would you say that you are very much interested, somewhat interested, or not much interested in following the presidential campaign in 1988? 1. Very much interested 3. Somewhat interested 5. Not much interested 3. (InterestPaper) How much attention did you pay to articles in the newspaper about the presidential primary campaigns -- a great deal, quite a bit, some, very little, or none? 1. A great deal 2. Quite a bit 3. Some 4. Very little 5. None 4. (InterestTV) How much attention did you pay to news on TV about the presidential primary campaigns -- a great deal, quite a bit, some, very little, or none? 1. A great deal 2. Quite a bit 3. Some 4. Very little 5. None
160
Appendix R:
Study Three 1988 ANES Ideology Measure We hear a lot of talk these days about liberals and conservatives. Think about a ruler for measuring the political views that people might hold, from liberal to conservative. On this ruler, which goes from one to seven, a measurement of one means very liberal political views, and a measurement of seven would be very conservative. Just like a regular ruler, it has points in between, at 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. Where would you place yourself on this scale, remembering that 1 is very liberal and 7 is very conservative, or haven't you thought much about this? 1. Very liberal . . 7. Very conservative