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U.S. Presidential Election (u.s + presidential_election)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Moral Values and Vote Choice in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 2 2007
Jonathan Knuckey
Scholars and journalists have emphasized the growing importance of cultural issues and a "values divide" in shaping recent political behavior of the American electorate. Discussion of a values-based cleavage has been especially evident since exit polls for the 2004 presidential election revealed that "moral values" topped the list of issues that respondents cited as the "most important" issue in the election. While there has been considerable debate and disagreement over the influence of moral values in 2004, no analysis has performed a crucial test of the moral values hypothesis, namely developing a multivariate model to examine the effect of moral values on vote choice relative to other issue preferences and demographic variables. This article develops such a model using data from the 2004 American National Election Study. Findings suggest that moral values exerted an important effect on vote choice in the 2004 presidential election, even when other predictors of vote choice were included in a multivariate model. [source]

Racism, Sexism, and Candidate Evaluations in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2009
Caitlin E. Dwyer
In an attempt to understand the extent to which racism and sexism influenced affect toward Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, we analyze data from a national survey conducted in October 2008. Situating our investigation in previous examinations of modern racism and modern sexism, we test competing hypotheses about the role of these attitudes in the 2008 presidential election. Our results suggest that racism had a significant impact on candidate evaluations while sexism did not. We find that respondents who hold racist attitudes expressed negative attitudes toward Obama and positive attitudes toward Palin. When interacted with party identification, racism continued to exert a strong effect, indicating findings that are robust across partisan affiliations. Sexism, on the other hand, did not significantly influence evaluations of either Palin or Obama. [source]

Implicit Race Attitudes Predicted Vote in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2009
Anthony G. Greenwald
In the week before the 2008 United States presidential election, 1,057 registered voters reported their choice between the principal contenders (John McCain and Barack Obama) and completed several measures that might predict their candidate preference, including two implicit and two self-report measures of racial preference for European Americans (Whites) relative to African Americans (Blacks) and measures of symbolic racism and political conservatism. Greater White preference on each of the four race attitude measures predicted intention to vote for McCain, the White candidate. The implicit race attitude measures (Implicit Association Test and Affect Misattribution Procedure) predicted vote choice independently of the self-report race attitude measures, and also independently of political conservatism and symbolic racism. These findings support construct validity of the implicit measures. [source]

Lies in a Time of Threat: Betrayal Blindness and the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2005
Eileen L. Zurbriggen
Exit polls from the 2004 U.S. presidential election indicated overwhelming support for President Bush among voters who said they valued honesty, even though the Bush administration had been sharply criticized for deceiving the public, especially concerning the reasons for invading Iraq. A psychological theory recently developed to help explain memory loss in trauma survivors sheds light on this paradox. Betrayal Trauma Theory (Freyd, 1996) states that memory impairment is greatest when a victim is dependent on the perpetrator. The theory also predicts who will be "blind" to signs of deception,those who are emotionally or financially dependent on the person who is lying. Although every American is dependent on the U.S. President to some extent, religious conservatives may be more psychologically dependent than others. Because they believe their core values are under attack, they depend on powerful leaders such as President Bush to defend these values. This psychological dependence may make it difficult for them to notice the administration's deceptions. [source]

Leading the Charge: Media, Elites, and the Use of Emotion in Stimulating Rally Effects in Wartime

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2010
Sean Aday
This study examines the relationship between media coverage, elite cues, and emotion in shaping public opinion about use of force. It utilizes data across three time periods: an experiment conducted in early 2005 during the Iraq War, National Election Studies data collected during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, and NES data collected shortly after the U.S./coalition victory in the 1991 Gulf War. The study finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, media exert less influence on public opinion when they report negative or controversial news than when they reflect elite consensus and/or patriotic fervor. However, their importance is likely dependent upon the state of elite opinion, and thus media are best thought of as intervening variables between policymakers and the public. [source]

Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking: Reframing the Selective Exposure Debate

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 4 2009
R. Kelly Garrett
This article seeks to reframe the selective exposure debate by demonstrating that people exhibit a preference for opinion-reinforcing political information without systematically avoiding opinion challenges. The results are based on data collected in a national random-digit-dial telephone survey (n = 1,510) conducted prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Analyses show that Americans use the control afforded by online information sources to increase their exposure to opinions consistent with their own views without sacrificing contact with other opinions. This observation contradicts the common assumption that reinforcement seeking and challenge avoidance are intrinsically linked aspects of the selective exposure phenomenon. This distinction is important because the consequences of challenge avoidance are significantly more harmful to democratic deliberation than those of reinforcement seeking. Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking: Reframing the Debate Over Selective Exposure in the Political Domain This article seeks to reframe the selective exposure debate by demonstrating that people exhibit a preference for opinion-reinforcing political information without systematically avoiding opinion challenges. The results are based on data collected in a national randomdigit-dial telephone survey (n = 1,510) conducted prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Analyses show that Americans use the control afforded by online information sources to increase their exposure to opinions consistent with their own views without sacrificing contactwith other opinions. This observation contradicts the common assumption that reinforcement seeking and challenge avoidance are intrinsically linked aspects of the selective exposure phenomenon. This distinction is important because the consequences of challenge avoidance are significantly more harmful to democratic deliberation than those of reinforcement seeking. Politisch motivierte Suche nach Verstärkung: Eine Umdeutung der Debatte zur selektiven Wahrnehmung in der Politik Dieser Artikel versucht, die Debatte zur selektiven Wahrnehmung umzudeuten, indem er aufzeigt, dass Menschen eine Präferenz für meinungsverstärkende politische Informationen zeigen, ohne systematisch zu vermeiden, dass ihre Meinung hinterfragt wird. Diese Ergebnisse basieren auf Daten einer nationalen zufallsgesteuerten Telefonumfrage (n=1.510) die vor den U.S. Präsidentschaftswahlen 2004 durchgeführt wurde. Die Analysen zeigen, dass Amerikaner die Möglichkeiten von Online-Informationsquellen nutzen, um die Exposition zu konsistenten Meinungen herzustellen, ohne dafür andere Meinungen aufzugeben. Diese Beobachtung widerspricht der allgemeinen Annahme, dass Verstärkersuche und Herausforderungsvermeidung intrinsisch verbundene Aspekte des selektiven Wahrnehmungsphänomens sind. Diese Unterscheidung ist wichtig, weil die Konsequenzen der Vermeidung von Herausforderung für die demokratische Teilhabe wesentlich problematischer sind als die des Suchens nach Verstärkung. La Búsqueda del Reforzamiento Motivado Políticamente: Re-encuadrando el Debate sobre la Exposición Selectiva en el Dominio Político R. Kelly Garrett Resumen Este artículo busca re-encuadrar el debate sobre la exposición selectiva demostrando que la gente exhibe una preferencia por la opinión que refuerza la información política sin evadir sistemáticamente los desafíos de la opinión. Los resultados están basados en los datos colectados en una entrevista aleatoria de discado telefónico a nivel nacional (n = 1,510) conducida antes de la elección presidencial del 2004 de los EE.UU. Los análisis demuestran que los Estadounidenses usaron el control proporcionado por recursos de información online para incrementar la exposición a las opiniones consistentes con sus propios puntos de vista sin sacrificar el contacto con otras opiniones. Esta observación contradice la asunción común que la búsqueda del reforzamiento y la evasión del desafío están intrínsecamente unidos con los aspectos de la exposición selectiva del fenómeno. Esta distinción es importante porque las consecuencias de la evasión del desafío son significativamente más perjudiciales en la deliberación democrática que aquellas de la búsqueda del reforzamiento. [source]

Knowing Versus Caring: The Role of Affect and Cognition in Political Perceptions

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2001
Kathleen A. Dolan
This paper examines the importance of political knowledge in shaping accurate perceptions of the political world,specifically, how levels of general political knowledge influence the accuracy of specific political judgments, how those judgments might also be shaped by "wishful thinking," and how political knowledge attenuates the impact of wishful thinking on political judgments. Predictions of who would win the U.S. presidential election in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996, as surveyed in the National Election Studies conducted in those years, were used as a measure of the accuracy of political perceptions. Analysis of these data reveals that both political knowledge and wishful thinking are important determinants of the accuracy of people's perceptions; in addition, the impact of wishful thinking on perceptions is attenuated by political knowledge. [source]