PS 330 Exam 2

What kind of scale can measure partisanship and what is on this scale?

• 7 Point scale

• Ranges from strong democrat to strong republican

• Measures psychological attachment to political parties

• More of a mindset than a behavioral reality when people label themselves ad independent (people are more polarized than they think)

What is another type of measurement of partisanship that is more nuanced, and how does it work? What does it find compared to the 7-point scale?

A feelings thermometer: respondents are asked to imagine a thermometer from coldest to hottest

• Add up democratic and republican scores and subtract democrat minus republican

• Scale: 200 (warm) to 0 (equal feelings)

• Those who report on a scale that they are more independent are more polarized than they think

What is a partisan alignment?

an extended period in which the strength and bases of support for the major parties are relatively consistent

What is realigment and when does a realignment occur?

When we shift from one partisan era to another, divides voters in a new or stronger way

typically occurs due to a wedge or cleavage issue and has to be such a large issue that the system cannot withstand the divisions

Ex: alignment of population divided between blue party and red → new issue comes along, and big portions of the blue party are split against one another, and red party is split against each other → parties reconfigure (realignment)

What realignment are we in now? Explain the different realigments.

The 5th realignment, post great depression

• 1801-1828: Federalists or opposed the federalist

• 1829-1860: two-party system (jacksonian democrats v. Whigs)

• 1860-1896: democrats and republicans (Whigs are driven out) 

• 1896-1932: fourth party system, trigger election, republicans dominated

• 1932- post great depression, Democrats solidify, FDR coalition

Are we still in a fifth alignment? What are the 2 prespectives?

Yes because the FDR coalition is still in place

No because we are in a realigment surrounding DT as a populist

What are the 3 functions of Partisan ID

1. Running Tally

2. Social Identity

3. Perceptual lens

What is Running tally in PID

You choose your political party based on which party matches your opinion on different issues, you keep a mental scorecard

1. Develop opinions on issues

2. Compare your opinions with the positions of the political parties

3. Identify with the party that agrees with you on the most issues

Bottom up- opinions first then party identification

Can change, continually weighing different issues and comparing the parties

What is Social Identity and PID

You identify with a political party because you feel like you belong to that group, almost like choosing a team to support

1. you feel attached to a party

2. you see it as part of your identity

3. you align your opinions with the party’s positions

4. attachment matters more than whether or not you agree on everything

What is perceptual lens in PID

Your party ID acts like a pair of glasses that influences how you see and interpret policy

1. you already identify with a party

2. your party ID shapes the information you pay attention to

3. you are more likely to trust info that supports your party and question info that challenges it

4. harder to accept other prespectives

result: biased processing

What is the funnel of Causality for party Identification/Michigan Model

Your background influences which political parties you identify with and identification influences how you view candidates and issues and how you vote

Background → widest part (sociological demographic characteristics)

Middle → Party ID (the driver)

Candidate and issue perceptions

Final → Vote

Criticisms of the Michigan Model; where does it come from and what does it say

Conveyed from the authors of The American Voter

• Partisan never changes

• No feedback can be strong enough to get you to change your party

• Most people do not change total affiliation but people can make one to two changes (such as going from a strong to regular democrat)

• Partisanship has much more stability than the model accounts for

What is affective partisan polarization and how do we get it

People do not just disagree with the other political party; they develop strong feelings towards their own party and are negative towards the other, with less focus on accuracy

If PID is an identity or perceptual lens, we may get affective polarization

What are the consequences of effective polarization?

People keep voting for democracts and republicans no matter what so policymakers do not get an accurate signal on people and policy decions

It also short circuits thinking → gives you an excuse to not consider other prespectives

How do psychologists and political scientists differ in measuring personality?

Psychologists may use hundreds of items, where political scientists may use 10-20

Political scientists work to be more efficient in larger studies

Why do political scientists measure civic knowledge?

It is one of the best single indicators of the foundations of citizen competence

What is a limitation of civic knowledge measures

they do not capture every skill needed for good political knowledge

What did Delli Carpini and Keeter study?

a compilation of political knowledge to show that knowledge levels vary greatly

What did Delli Carpini and Ketter argue

• more knowledge is always better

• knowledge represents the basic requirements for citizen competences because it is related with other constructs and signifies that you do pay attention and have knowledge of politics

What did Delli Carpini and Keeter show

that 5 questions can be enough to measure knowledge

What do standard civic knowledge questions measure?

knowledge of government structures, powers, and political processes

But knowing the right answers more broadly represents your knowledge it is not a depiction of your confidence

What type of questions are commonly used to research civic knowledge

close-ended questions with specific answers

What is the K&Q question about validity

Is knowledge necessary and sufficient to represent the bases of competence?

Probably necessary, but not sufficient

Main takeaway from Delli Carpini and Keeter

Civic knowledge is a useful indicator of competence but does not explain or measure everything

What other variables are added into civic knowledge now

current events knowledge, education, cognitive ability, and political interest

Does knowledge always make things better and why

No because if people have very strong partisan biases, they engage in partisan motivated reasoning. Biases weaponize knowledge meaning high-knowledge respondetns make more bias driven errors. Knowledge can be used to rationalize judgements that align with your partisan bias

What experiment was done to answer if knowledge increases accuracy

People were shown empirical data about two policies, sanctuary cities and increasing minimum wage and were asked to report what the data shows. Asking what the data shows is a factual question, there is not right answer empirically.

What did the experiment reveal

knowledge does not increase accuracy, it magnifies bias

it is somewhat symmetrical but stronger for conservatives

this is bad because it means the solution is part of the problem

What did the Mary Anderson paper focus on

Measurements related to the gender gap in knowledge

What concetps does the paper focus on

validity and reliability

What does a dont know option do to knowledge scales

It can measure political knowledge and a person’s willingness to guess

What happens to validity when a dont know option is includes

Scores may reflect the knowledge and guessing tendencies, not knowledge alone

What happens when the dont know option is removed

Scores reflect knowledge and random error rather than the explicit choise not to guess

What happens to reliability with a dont know option

reliability is higher because more respondents get straight zereos because they choose that option

What happens when the paper guesses on behalf of women respondents

reliability decreases, validity increases, and observed knowledge levels increase

Why might guessing on behalf of respondents improve validity

It helps account for differences in willingness to guess rather than treating every non-answer as a lack of knowledge

What does the paper show about common measurement practices

There is misrepresentation of political knowledge and exaggeration in the gender gap. Measured differences in knowledge may partly reflect how people answer questions, not just what they know

What are heurstics

Efficiency mechanisms, judgmental shortcuts. Simplifications to spend less time but still be confident. They are used to help make decisions relatively rapidly

How does heuristic processing relate to converse

If it works it might be a psychologically realistic alternative or answer to Converse/ Conserve said highly structured belief systems that lead to the production of good decisions in politics. Juxtaposed it with people deciding off the top of their head with no criteria or structure

What is the citizens objective in politics and heuristics

make well-grounded judgments about politics while minimizing time and effort.

What is bounded rationality

Balancing decision quality and efficiency. Still rational but within the bounds of time

What is satisficing

People have a threshold for quality they would like to achieve, and once they reach it they will stop and move on

ex: studying for finals and stopping when you decide you will get a good enough score

Why do people balance quality and efficiency (what is the motivation and ability)

Motivation: avoid bad decisions, but do not want to make time

Ability: memory is limited, cognitive ability is limited, available time to devote to a decision is limited

ex: Jimmy Buffets song about opportunity costs, trade offs, and recalling only certain things

What are the two steps for efficiency in heurstics

1. look at a subset of information, not all

2. evaluate the info using a simple decision rule, not by careful deliberation

What were Tversky and Kahneman’s 3 rules for heuristics and efficiecny

1. Representativeness

2. Availability

3. Adjustment and anchoring

What is representativeness according to T & K (w/ex)

Classify the target by whether it has the most important characteristics for the protypical item in a category

ex: we see something with four legs, two feet tall, and sleeps on the courch

therefore it is a dog

What is availability for T & K (w/ ex)

Classify the target by whether it possesses the most important characterstics of examples from the category that most quickly comes to mind

ex: judge whether a new Beatles song is probably good by thinking of a beetles song, knowing that song is good

conclude the song is good

What is adjustment and anchoring with T & K (w /ex)

Evaluate a new item by using a starting point and then adjusting by either adding or subtracting

ex: how many Americans have died from covid in 2023? Know how many died in 2022, assume some improvements in 2023

Subtract some from the 2022 values

What do heuristic scholars say in response to Converse saying attitudes lack a deep structure

Heuristic scholars say we do not need highly developed structure, and info can go far. The result will be better than random but less than fully infomed

Non attitudes ← Heuristic Processing → full information

Do T & K see Heuristics as useful

Yes, judgements are not random and thinking is good

How can party ID act as a heuristic

People are more likely to agree with info from their own political party

What is coattail voting

Using your opinion of a high-profile candidate to decide how to vote for other candidates.

ex: Voting for Democratic House candidates because you support the Democratic presidential candidate.

Why might someone use coattail voting?

They know little about the lower-profile candidates but trust their presidential candidate or party.

What is a downside of coattail voting?

Voters may overlook differences between candidates and their actual policy positions.

What is the main takeaway about heuristics?

Mental shortcuts help people make decisions with limited information, but their accuracy depends on the cue being used.

What is the Zelmar the IV example of heuristic processing

Delmar is the student body president and asks for extra credit. He is told he can go to a conference in Tampa. Discussion is technical and he figures he is going to blow it. Everyone jumps up chanting which tells him which paper was the best. He focused on one cue indicating it was exciting.

• highly efficient

• end-oriented

• he could be wrong but the odds were in favor of him being right

What is the Robert Mapplethorpe photography example

Jesse Helms was a despised senator and he was against the exhibit, therefore the person decided they liked it based off of that

• balance theory → how we navigate when we have 2 existing pieces of information

What is judgement theory

Infer a judgement about a new object by applying to known judgments. To be balanced multiplication of the three signs must yield a positive

What were California Supreme Court judicial merit retention elections?

Most voters knew very little about the judges.

They voted based on whether they had heard something negative about a judge.

What was the purpose of providing Reagan and Jerry Brown appointment cues

To test whether knowing which governor appointed a judge improved the quality of voters' opinions.

If you are low on cognitive efficacy you would benefit from the cue

 Raegan/Brown cues should matter the most for respondents with strong views of Reagan and Brown; respondents with high need for efficiency should latch onto the cues; should matter more for the associate justices rather than the chief justices because she had never been heard about

What is opinion direction in the study

Whether the cue leads someone toward a predictable positive or negative opinion.

What is contrary evidence to the use of cues

• People with low education and interest use low-quality cues

• People high in those attributes use better cues

• Heuristic processing does not close the gap in judgment rather it makes it bigger

What is the dark side to heuristics

If people follow leaders wherever they lead, undemocratic signals could increase mass support for undemocratic perspectives

What was the Donald Trump example to heuristics

Leaders: People who are undemocratic like Trump and Putin, Trump has talked about Putin in a positive way and do not like Trudeau because he has talked about them in a negative way

Things trump has actually said: People who do not like Trump like Trudeau even more

The weakest cue effect is for Putin because people know Trump likes Putin

Telling people that Canada is Democratic and Russia is authoritarian did not diminish the Trump effect

What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model and how does it help

a major social psychological model of information processing and opinion formation. It helps us see how to visualize a theory and how doing so can prompt the generation of a hypothesis

It posits who different information processing tracks, highlights the roles of motivation and ability, and connects the processing tracks to attitudes

What did Lodge, McGraw, and Strain focus on

Candidate evaluation through comparing with ELM; the candidate with information potentially being provided in bits and pieces over time

Information about A is relevant to B

What is the memory model

Process information, store it in memory, use it when necessary

What did Lodge et., al show about how information arrives

Obtain new infor, think about it, and use the info if it is powerful enough to change your summary judgement. Rating candidates on a scale of 0-100. Then downgrading oro upgrading numbers based on the information you have. Later you will not remember the specific piece of information that had you update your summary judgement but you remember the numerical ranking instead (bottom-line judgement)

What are the observable implication of Lodge, et al.

After people are exposed to the info and update their views, you should see that people who do not remember the information they receive still show signs of being affected by the information; the nature leaves an imprint even if you do not remember the specific information

LMS Method

Exposed people to information about candidates

They formed separate measures of the information the people saw and the information the people remembered; then they asked what was remembered and created a scale. Then they had respondents update what they did and did not like about the candidate

What did LMS find

memory was imperfect and candidate evaluation is not shaped by policy evaluations remembered but the person’s feelings (affective judgements/likes and dislikes)

What are the implications of LMS

explained why when Converse and Hibbing asked people to explain themselves, they fared poorly and the conclusion was supported that there were no underlying political views HOWEVER LMS countered it holding that people may have taken in, processed, and made use of information to form information and forgot what shaped it

Objections to LMS model

• if people can not explain themselves, that limits the quality of input they can provide to the political system

• Nothing in LMS accounts for polarization or bias

• Inputs shape output and the input is forgotten

• Leaves a garbage in/garbage out scenario with misinformation and bias

• Single shot experiment

• cant know for for certain memories were wiped

Who was Donna Gene Mitchell and what was her dissertation about

One of the Ph.D graduates

Stated the online model applies to processes that unfold over weeks or months but was tested in a single-shot

She updated it by creating a 12 week continuous experiment exposing participants to new information as it would occur in a campaign with 2 test groups. Gave an opinion about a candidate and update it based on info

Results of Donna Gene Mitchell

Week to week no issue tally

Strong effects of partisanship and new info

Found no memory effect

Suggests new information briefly drives out old, but the basic online logic is supported, it was on the right track but did not take into account how impactful new info can be in the moment

There should be recency primacy

How does Donna Gene Mitchell feel about LMS and online model

Mostly supportive because there is a tally effect, but suggests the online model was not as realistic to modern campaigns as the authors though they did, because there is new information every day (new information will drive out the old)

• We get reactivation of running tally when there is no new information

• The higher the volume of information, the less it is probably going to matter what your old running tally was 

• Low information elects online model may make sense because there's not a bunch of new information coming in 

What did Coronel et al. propose

Got people with amnesia who can not remember anything they have cognitively processed for a couple of hours, but the affective center is in a different portion of their brain this way the logic of online model could be tested.

This is because amnesiacs cant retain memories but they can retain affect

What was Coronel et. al design study

1. expose amnesiacs to issue information about candidates

2. distract them with math problems

3. ask them how they would vote

Results from Coronel et al

They voted for the right candidates 18 out of 20 times

• Strong evidence of the correctness of the assumption of the online model that people could completely forget the information, but as long as they did receive it and process it and create a preference, it would endure later on even if all the facts are gone

Implications of Coronel et al.

• we do not need to have memories of issue-specific information to report well-grounded judgements about political candidates as long as we ever have that info in a two-step matter (process and decide how much we like or dislike this candidate or policy and forget it but carry it

• Closes the loophole left by Lodge, McGraw

Limitations of Lodge, McGraw, and Straw

• It is assuming that these participants had no memory because their memories seemed to be spotty after an hour of being exposed, and there was no effect of what they remembered

• We can not know for sure that they forgot that information; it could have been there, and there could be a hidden memory effect

• Unpure test of the online model