Suchergebnisse

Decades of voting behavior studies have found party affiliation, issue stands and ideology, and candidate image to be major factors influencing voter evaluations of candidates. The relative importance of these criteria, however, may depend on the context in which the information processing about the candidate occurs. Specifically, in this study, an experimentally designed survey is used to change the context of the judgment task from an absolute judgment of one candidate to a comparison judgment of two candidates. The results show that subjects changed from a discrete information processing strategy when judging one candidate to a heuristic processing strategy when judging two candidates. The implications for citizen evaluations of political candidates is discussed.

Individuals have a representation of how they personally feel about issues ('actual' feelings), as well as a representation of the attitudes that they believe they should 'ideally' possess, reflecting personal values. Furthermore, existing in a social-political environment, individuals make estimations of how they believe others around them think that they 'ought' to feel. These different representations of self may conflict, especially where external constraints on political actions are present. A survey of self-discrepancies before & after the change in political system in South Africa tests whether the change in regime & possible political behaviors impacted actual, ideal, & ought attitudes about general democratic principles & their application to specific positively & negatively evaluated groups. 4 Tables. Adapted from the source document.