Individual and Contextual Variations in Political Candidate Appraisal

• Published in: The American political science review Vol. 88; no. 1; pp. 193 - 199
• Main Authors: Rahn, Wendy M., Aldrich, John H., Borgida, Eugene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01-03-1994; American Political Science Association
• Subjects: Candidate; Candidates; Cognition & reasoning; Congressional candidates; Evaluation; Judgment; Memory; Memory recall; Motivation; Political behaviour; Political campaigns; Political candidates; Political debate; Political information; Political partisanship; Political science; Political sociology; Politics; Presidential debates; Research Notes; Sociology; Television viewers; USAGE OF INFORMATION; Voter behavior; VOTING; Voting behaviour; Policy; Candidates; Voting Behaviour; Memory; Political Parties; Voter; Votes; Identification; Information; Cognitive Process
• ISSN: 0003-0554; 1537-5943
• DOI: 10.2307/2944891

In this note we elaborate on the conditions under which on-line and memory-based strategies of political candidate evaluation can be implemented. We suggest that the structure of information may be an important contextual variable affecting the voter's choice of these strategies. In addition, we propose that citizens with less political sophistication are particularly sensitive to structural differences in the political information environment. We use an experimental design that manipulates the information-processing context to test these ideas. Our results suggest that the context in which information is presented plays a critical role in moderating the influence of individual differences in political sophistication.