Suchergebnisse

An experiment was designed to ascertain if political sophistication helps the voter focus on the available information about the ideology of candidates as opposed to drawing inferences on the candidates' personality based on their photos. With this purpose in mind, 937 participants in a web questionnaire were presented with two unknown hypothetical candidates and were asked to vote for one of them. Information on the candidates was presented (and successively manipulated) in the fashion of electoral posters showing both the candidates' pictures as well as a set of policy statements. According to the findings, the photograph of a candidate significantly influences voter behavior at the ballot box. Moreover, a higher level of political sophistication does not prevent or reduce the possibility that such visual information may have a bearing on a candidate's electoral success. Adapted from the source document.

This research project assesses the role played by political sophistication in terms of itsimpact on the voters' resort to cognitive shortcuts, with reference both to the consciousand non-conscious components of voting decisions. The investigation scrutinisesempirically the way both sophisticated and unsophisticated individuals make politicaljudgments when prompted with cognitive cues in three different settings. In each ofthem a specific type of cue impinges on the political judgment of individuals at adifferent level and leads to a specific decisional outcome. The overall findings castdoubts on the virtues of heuristic reasoning as effective remedy for voters who have tofind their bearings in the ballot box, but they also downplay the importance of politicalsophistication when visual or subliminal cues are involved in the decision. ; Aquest projecte de recerca avalua el paper exercit per la sofisticació política en termesdel seu impacte sobre el recurs dels votants als atalls cognitius, amb referència tant alscomponents conscients i no conscients de les decisions de vot. La investigació examinaempíricament la manera com ambdós individus sofisticats i no sofisticats fan judicispolítics quan si li estimuli amb senyals cognitives de tres tipus diferents. En cada und'ells un tipus específic de atall incideix en el judici polític dels individus en un nivelldiferent i condueix a un resultat específic de presa de decisions. Els resultats generalsposen en dubte les virtuts del raonament heurístic com a remei eficaç per als votants ques'han d'orientar a les urnes, sinó que també minimitzen la importància de la sofisticaciópolítica, quan senyals visuals o subliminals estan involucrats en la decisió.

A review essay on books by (1) Henry Milner, Civic Literacy: How Informed Citizens Make Democracy Work (Tufts U Press, 2002); (3) Michael Delli Carpini & Scott Keeter, What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters (Yale U Press, 1997); & (3) Scott L. Althous, Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People (Cambridge U Press, 2003).