Poli Sci Exam 1: Knowledge and Information: Processing, Misinformation, Framing, and Priming

Why does political knowledge matter?

Political knowledge is required in order for individuals to take action to make changes/have some power in the world.

Define political knowledge:

The range of factual information about politics that is stored in long-term memory acquired according to: Ability, Opportunity, and Motivation

Explain Barbaras et al. (what forms of political knowledge do they talk about, what are their hypothesis?)

4 types: policy-specific vs. general and static vs. surveillance.

Hypotheses: Higher education means more general knowledge across both temporal variables. More media coverage means more knowledge of surveillance facts, but no relationship between media and static facts.

Explain Weitz-shapiro et al. (what forms of political knowledge do they talk about, what are their hypothesis?)

They focus on KSR, or knowledge of social rights. Knowledge of social rights involves what rights the state has to fulfill, who within the state is charged with fulfilling those rights, and how the state fulfills the rights. Their two hypotheses involve lower/middle income countries, and says that the privileged groups have higher levels of traditional political knowledge, but not higher level of KSR. Both were mainly supported!

What is operational information?

Information related to issue attitudes

What is symbolic information?

Information related to social identities

What type of information is more central to our attitudes? How does it relate to SIT?

Brandt et al. found that symbolic information (info about social identities) were more central to our attitudes, showing how important SIT is.

Characteristics of LTM:

Selected info stored from short-term memory with biased storage and selectivity

Characteristics of STM:

5-7 pieces of info at once, onboards new info + retrieved from LTM. Has biased onboarding and retrieval processes

System I vs. System II

I = Automatic, implicit, and rapid

II = Conscious, explicit, controlled

Explain the On-Line Processing Model:

New info comes in and it attached with an affective tag (hot cognition) to result in a general evaluation in STM. System I based.

Explain the Memory-based Processing Model:

New info stored, goes to LTM, specific info is retrieved and leads to specific eval as STM. System II based.

Explain the John Q Public model:

You have System I and System II processes that both influence how you process information. Even when we are motivated to engage in System II processes, our initial response from System I will influence how we deliberate about an event. That is, System II is affected by hot cognition and affect priming.

We simultaneously have a motivation to be _____ and _____?

right and accurate

Define misperceptions:

Factual beliefs that are false or contradict the best available evidence in the public domain

Rumors vs. conspiracy theories vs. misinformation?

Rumors = insufficient evidence but socially transmitted credibility

Conspiracy theory = explanation of politics/history rooted in machinery of powerful people or organizations

Misinformation = Insufficient evidence firmly held belief

What is confirmation bias?

Selective exposure to information that reinforces priors

What is disconfirmation bias?

Arguments against information that contradicts priors

What is prior attitude effect?

More credibility placed with information that reinforces rather than contradicts priors

Explain the Receive-Accept-Sample Model

Each of the three steps (receiving info, accepting info, and sampling info) are biased! For receiving info, that is like how you can choose what info you are exposed to in the first place (what news source you choose). For accepting info that is storing something into your LTM and its like if you are biased against certain info you would just not even store it in LTM. For sampling its retrieving certain info from LTM that is biased cuz you can choose like what to remember in a biased manner.

When are misperceptions super hard to change?

If they are highly salient or linked to social ID.

What is motivational solution?

Correction comes from source the individual trusts or sympathizes with

What is cognitive solution?

An alternative explanation accompanies the correction that does not repeat false info in negative form.

How does partisan attitudes affect processing of retractions?

Retractions are consistently found to be ineffective for conservatives, probably because of conservative traits like closed-mindedness to foster attitude-dissonant retractions.

What enhances belief of a conspiracy theory?

Increased anxiety/anxiety prime, if conspirator is corporation, conspiracy perceptions are higher the more liberal a person is, perceptions are more likely when victims are multiple and anonymous.

What is framing?

The process by which people develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue. Free speech, individual liberty, etc

What is a frame in thought? Example?

Which overarching considerations are accessible to the individual when asked to express an attitude?

What is a frame in communication?

Intended to cast a particular understanding of an issue, an event, a group used by political elites and resonated with frames in thought to persuade people.

What are equivalence frames? What are they also known as?

Valence frames, those that are put in different terms but logically equivalent

What are mediators of framing effects?

Availability: Has individual been exposed to relevant considerations?

Accessibility: System I and II processes

Moderators of framing effects?

Prior strong dispositions, political knowledge, credibility of frame source

What is priming?

A procedure that increases the accessibility of some category of construct in the memory. Example is survey question order.

Avadagic and Sedelmeier 2023 research q? What do they theorize? Findings?

How do frames in public discourse influence support for multilateral vaccine cooperation during COVID? Based on ingroup/outgroup biases, the vaccine nationalism frame will have a stronger effect than the international cooperation frame. Nationalism frame reduces support for multilateralism, while international cooperation frame doesn’t affect support. Also social ID moderates this: leavers are more susceptible to vaccine nationalism frame effects.