Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Political person perception: The asymmetrical influence of sentiment and choice on perceptions of presidential candidates

Political person perception: The asymmetrical influence of sentiment and choice on perceptions of... Argues that voters construct images of political leaders that reinforce and support their own opinions about politics and that this can be understood in terms provided by cognitive consistency theories. Based on national survey data from 1,384 Ss, the effects of sentiment relations, choice, and unit relations on voters' perceptions of issue positions taken by presidential candidates in 1968 were analyzed. The major determinant of voters' perceptions was sentiment: Those who admired a candidate tended to see him as promoting policies they themselves favored (assimilation); those displeased with a candidate showed the opposite tendency (contrast), although less consistently and less powerfully. This asymmetrical pattern––greater assimilation than contrast––also characterized the more modt effect of choice. Finally, the unit relation had no direct effect on perception. Implications for balance theory, for the difference between positive and negative sentiment, and for the nature of the processes underlying political mispercpetion are discussed. (1½ p ref) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Personality and Social Psychology American Psychological Association

Political person perception: The asymmetrical influence of sentiment and choice on perceptions of presidential candidates

Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/american-psychological-association/political-person-perception-the-asymmetrical-influence-of-sentiment-idL6O30861

References (41)

Publisher
American Psychological Association
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 American Psychological Association
ISSN
0022-3514
eISSN
1939-1315
DOI
10.1037/0022-3514.36.8.859
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Argues that voters construct images of political leaders that reinforce and support their own opinions about politics and that this can be understood in terms provided by cognitive consistency theories. Based on national survey data from 1,384 Ss, the effects of sentiment relations, choice, and unit relations on voters' perceptions of issue positions taken by presidential candidates in 1968 were analyzed. The major determinant of voters' perceptions was sentiment: Those who admired a candidate tended to see him as promoting policies they themselves favored (assimilation); those displeased with a candidate showed the opposite tendency (contrast), although less consistently and less powerfully. This asymmetrical pattern––greater assimilation than contrast––also characterized the more modt effect of choice. Finally, the unit relation had no direct effect on perception. Implications for balance theory, for the difference between positive and negative sentiment, and for the nature of the processes underlying political mispercpetion are discussed. (1½ p ref)

Journal

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – American Psychological Association

Published: Aug 1, 1978

There are no references for this article.