Chapter 15

Political Psychology

Public Opinion and Voting Public opinion surveys can be used to

predict the outcome of most presidential elections within 1-2 percentage points Most voters’ preferences are predictable

before the beginning of the campaign, even though some say they have not decided

Campaigns matter for conveying information Since campaigns are professionally run, for

the most part they offset each other. But if a candidate did not campaign, he or she would probably lose.

Public Opinion and Voting Today’s dominant theory of voting

was published in The American Voter (1960). Party Identification = a “standing

decision” to favor one party By the process of cognitive

consistency, party identification shapes attitudes towards candidates and issues.

Public Opinion and Voting Pocketbook voting is based on self-

interest. Sociotropic voting is based on

beliefs about what is good for the national welfare as a whole.

Public Opinion and Voting Research suggests that self-interested

voting is in fact rare. Plays a role in some issues: smoking regulations, gun

control, taxes But does not play a role with regard to attitudes on

welfare, health care, crime, energy shortage, or war Why?

Because the effects of government policies on individuals are usually not large, direct, or clear

Because people attribute responsibility for their personal outcomes to themselves but for the nation’s outcomes to political leaders

Public Opinion and Voting Do voters have unstable,

inconsistent, and non-ideological attitudes? Non-attitudes describes the finding

that many people seem to respond more-or-less randomly to questions about policy

Relatively few voters seem to think in ideological terms

Public Opinion and Voting Today there are challenges to this

view of voters Voters may be “rationally ignorant”

by using cognitive shortcuts to make political decisions

People may use “on-line” processing to adjust their evaluations without remembering why they did so

Public Opinion and Voting Some unstable attitudes reflect

true ambivalence about an issue (believing there are good arguments on both sides) This leads to apparent inconsistency

depending on which set of contradictory beliefs are accessible at the time of decision-making

Public Opinion and Voting Voters may look more consistent if

we focus on the issues that they most care about. Look at the “issue public” for the

issue Look at attitudes grounded in values

Public Opinion and Voting Whether or not people understand

it, ideological identifications are playing an increasing role in partisan politics. The association of Democrats with

liberal positions and Republicans with conservative stances is much stronger than it used to be

Political Socialization Party identification typically

develops before adulthood, is significantly influenced by one’s family, and stays fairly stable.

Parental influence is greatest on issues about which they communicate clearly and repeatedly

Political Socialization Political events such as

presidential primaries are times when adolescents’ party identification strengthens, especially if they talk about the campaign to family & friends

Political Socialization Do early acquired predispositions

indeed last through life? Three hypotheses contrasted

Persistence Impressionable years (teens & early

adulthood as key) Lifelong openness

The data support the “impressionable years” view

Political Socialization Newcomb (1943) studied the attitudes of

students attending Bennington College. Students attending the school came from

conservative Republican families, but the faculty and the norms of the college were very liberal.

Students gradually changed their views during their college years to become more liberal, and these changes persisted for the next 50 years.

Political Socialization Collective memories are memories

that are broadly shared about events of the past.

The evidence shows that events that occur during late adolescence and early adulthood leave the most lasting impact.

Group Conflict Social class

In most democracies, middle- and upper-class voters usually support conservative parties, while the working-class support parties that favor the redistribution of wealth downward.

It’s not so simple in the U.S. today, though there have been times in the past when politics here divided along class lines.

Group Conflict There are strong racial divides in

American politics. Blacks are very strongly Democratic. Whites’ racial attitudes play a role in

their policy preferences on many issues Not just voting for African-American

candidates or for clearly race-related issues, but also for issues such as taxes and government spending that are not clearly race-related.

Group Conflict There is an increasing gender gap in

voting patterns. Women are consistently more likely to vote

Democrat. Why?

Women are more caring about others’ well-being

Women’s increasing role in the work-force has sensitized them to gender inequality

Group Conflict Women now vote at the same rate men

do, but there is still a gender gap in their political influence. Women tend to be less likely to vote consistently with their issue

preferences less active in political participation less informed about political issues

Those who are more informed also tend to be more active and to vote more consistently with their issue preferences; for these women, the gender gap disappears.

Group Conflict Religion

Traditionally, the split has been between Protestants voting Republican and Jews and Catholics voting Democratic.

Today, the big split among religions has to do with fundamentalism: religious fundamentalists tend to vote Republican, while secularists and religious liberals vote Democratic.

Group Conflict Despite increasing political

tolerance as educational levels increase, people are most likely to support freedom of expression for those with whom they agree. Younger and better-educated people

tend to be more tolerant. But when hostilities run high,

tolerance decreases across the board.

The Mass Media The 1940s idea of selective

exposure suggests that people may listen only to those candidates they already support, leading to a minimal effects model of the influence of the media.

The Mass Media One obstacle to media influence is

reaching the people they want to influence Fewer people are exposed to political

news today than formerly Newspaper subscriptions are down Few people watch TV news, and those

who do tend not to watch it carefully

The Mass Media A second obstacle to media influence is

changing attitudes once the message has been heard Those who are most likely to hear the

message are those who are most likely to resist it

Media influence is biggest when the attitude is about a person or issue that is unfamiliar, and in primary and nonpartisan elections when party identification is not an issue.

The Mass Media Sometimes, however, truly

massive public exposure to political events does occur and can produce major attitude changes E.g., JFK assassination; September

11th

The Mass Media Important attitude change may

result from long-term exposure If political elites agree, those who

receive more exposure will be driven to support a common position (mainstream effect)

If political elites disagree, those who receive more exposure will tend to polarize around their basic stances

The Mass Media However, long-term exposure does

not guarantee persuasion E.g., the Monica Lewinsky scandal did

not discredit Clinton Public decided it was a private, not

public, issue Intense media coverage merely polarized

people around their party identifications

The Mass Media Thus, massive media exposure is

more likely to polarize people around their existing predispositions than it is to persuade them. The media thus often have only a modest persuasive impact.

The Mass Media The media does a good job of

providing information. However, the audience for “hard

news” is shrinking, and the content of hard news has gotten softer. Less focus on policy issues, more on

human interest, crime, disaster, sensationalism, and, for political campaigns, the “horse race”

The Mass Media Theorists have posited that the

media is engaged in agenda setting: They influence not what the public

thinks, but what it thinks about.

The Mass Media Experiments testing this idea show that

the media can set the agenda, but they cannot tell us whether the media does normally set it.

In general, politicians, media and the public seem to go together Politicians try to please voters Media covers the politicians and what it

thinks will interest the public

The Mass Media Media coverage of an issue affects

which attitudes come to a voter’s mind and thus which attitudes most influence political choices This is an example of priming Example: the Willie Horton ads

The Mass Media Issue ownership refers to the idea

that each party “owns” different issues Democrats “own” compassion issues

(health care, education, welfare) Republicans “own” issues of taxes,

crime, and the military Each party tries to have the issues it

owns dominate the political agenda

The Mass Media Framing makes some aspects of an

issue especially salient in order to promote a particular interpretation of it Works by invoking metaphors & symbols

E.g., “Vietnam” or “Hitler” as a dominant analogy during the Gulf War.

Originally, generations differed in which metaphor was dominant, but with Bush’s focus on the Hitler analogy, it became dominant for all ages, and support for the war rose with it.

The Mass Media Republicans tend to favor framings

that discuss the abstract issue of smaller central government, an issue they “own”

Democrats favor framings that favor discussion of specific service proposals, since they “own” many of these specific issues

International Conflict Enemy images

Generally perceived as immoral Group serving biases

We make favorable attributions for our own country’s actions but unfavorable attributions for other country’s actions

Mirror image Each side comes to believe that it is peaceful and

its enemy aggressive Blacktop illusion

People also tend to perceive the enemy’s government as evil but the people as good

International Conflict “Those who cannot remember the

past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

Is this true? History can provide useful lesson,s

but there are dangers of misapplying lessons from the past inappropriately

International Conflict A psychological perspecitive

suggests that leaders rely on bounded rationality in making decisions: They are rational within limits and

make decisions that are “good enough” rather than perfect

International Conflict How do political leaders deal with

crises? Stress can reduce the complexity of

information processing and lead to defensive avoidance and wishful thinking

Groupthink may distort the decisions of small policy-making elites

Specific tactics can reduce this tendency

International Conflict The psychological perspective in

politics, which tends to focus on factors that foster irrationality contrasts with the rational-choice theory of economics, which views people as motivated by the pursuit of self-interest The difference reflects the complexity of the

human species Each approach has its own strengths &

weaknesses