David C. Barker

Competing Visions of Parental Roles and Ideological Constraint

This paper explores the etiology of ideological constraint in the United States. In an effort to gain understanding of the ideational elements of political socialization, we concentrate on a provocative new theory put forward by cognitive linguist George Lakoff. Lakoff argues that many people reflexively envision proper power relations between citizens and government based on their understanding of proper power relations between children and parents: “nurturant” visions of parental roles engender egalitarian and humanitarian political values, whereas “disciplinarian” visions of proper parenting predict political individualism and traditionalism. Using data obtained from the 2000 National Election Study, we consider the empirical mettle of this account.

Political Talk Radio and Public Opinion

This article examines the relationship between listening to political talk radio (Rush Limbaugh in particular) and attitudes toward public figures, groups, and policies. We employ a variety of methods to combat the selection bias inherent in such relationships. We find that listening to Limbaugh is independently associated with attitudes toward issues that Limbaugh emphasizes but shows no independent covariance with attitudes toward salient issues that Limbaugh neglects. Moreover, Limbaugh listening independently corresponds to greater negativity toward Ross Perot, a figure for whom affect cannot be accurately predicted from individual party identification or ideology. Finally, regular listening to Limbaugh predicts substantial change in attitudes from 1994 to 1996, but the effects are substantially muted when the Limbaugh message is positive rather than negative.

End-Times Theology, the Shadow of the Future, and Public Resistance to Addressing Global Climate Change

The authors examine U.S. public attitudes regarding global climate change, addressing the puzzle of why support for governmental action on this front is tepid relative to what existing theories predict. Introducing the theoretical concept of relative sociotropic time horizons, the authors show that believers in Christian end-times theology are less likely to support policies designed to curb global warming than are other Americans. They then provide robustness checks by analyzing other policy attitudes. In so doing, the authors provide empirical evidence to suggest that citizens possessing shorter “shadows of the future” often resist policies trading short-term costs for hypothetical long-term benefits.

All Things Considered: Systematic Cognitive Processing and Electoral Decision-making

This paper seeks to understand what difference it makes if voters systematically consider a representative range of salient criteria before choosing a candidate, and whether the effects of such systematic processing are conditioned by political knowledge. To this end, we executed experiments during the 2000 electoral season that randomly exposed some subjects to an Analytic Hierarchy Processing (AHP) tool, which encourages systematic processing of various orthogonal decision criteria in complex choice environments. We predicted, and found, that the choices of knowledgeable voters exposed to AHP were weaker and less consistent than control group responses, suggesting that systematic processing induces integrative complexity and perhaps “analysis paralysis” among knowledgeable voters. However, we found that among less knowledgeable voters, the opposite pattern generally emerged—AHP exposure was associated with even greater reliance on party ID and ideology cues, perhaps even bolstering predispositions via projection and rationalization.

The Spirit of Capitalism? Religious Doctrine, Values, and Economic Attitude Constructs

This article examines the relationship between conservative Protestant doctrine and economic policy attitudes. Building upon Webers (1930) classic (and controversial) thesis that Calvinist thought inspired the “capitalist spirit,” we posit that the individualistic theology of fundamentalists, evangelicals, and charismatics often engenders political preferences for individualistic economic policies. We test this hypothesis by (1) performing a series of cross-sectional ordered probit analyses to understand the independent degree of association between doctrinal belief and economic attitudes toward taxing, spending, and the role of government, (2) creating and testing a structural equation model to assess various hypothesized paths of influence, and finally, (3) using 1994–96 NES panel data to assess the degree to which changes in an individuals doctrinal beliefs produce changes in his or her economic attitudes. Results lend substantial support to the efficacy of Webers thesis, and point to religious belief as one exogenous agent of core political values.

Of Crusades and Culture Wars: “Messianic” Militarism and Political Conflict in the United States

In this paper, we explore the manner and extent to which differences in militaristic orientations occupy an important front in the much ballyhooed American “culture war.” In particular, we posit that belief in biblical inerrancy engenders a “messianic” militarism. We further suggest that this relationship occurs not only directly but also indirectly, through a heightened sense of nationalism. We compare the predictive capacity of such traditionalistic Christian “believing” to other elements associated with it: (1) cognitive dogmatism, (2) hierarchical visions of authority, (3) devotionalism, and (3) immersion within the traditionalistic Christian culture. Finally, we demonstrate the relevance of these dynamics to understanding “red/blue” cleavage structures in the United States, by showing that as belief in the authority of the Bible increases, so does the perceived electoral salience of foreign policy issues, relative to domestic issues.

Information, Misinformation, and Political Talk Radio

This article provides an empirical test of the theory that individuals gather political knowledge by inferential reasoning -constructing political ”reality” from the messages to which they are exposed by making inferences about what they do not know based on extrapolations from what they see or hear. This ”filling-in” may often result in misinformation, or the belief in incorrect information (as distinguished from a simple lack of information, or ignorance). Widespread misinformation among the electorate changes our conception of democracy as a ”marketplace of ideas,” and may have much more serious consequences than does a broad lack of information or sophistication on the part of the electorate. Data from a 1997 random-digit-dial survey of 810 adults residing in San Diego was used to test the hypothesis that listening to political talk radio leads to higher levels of both information (regarding non-ideologically charged facts) and misinformation (regarding ideologically charged facts). Analysis revealed that active listening (not only listening but also calling and/or taking action because of talk radio) corresponded to higher levels of in- formation, regardless of the ideological nature of the talk radio programs to which the listeners were exposed. However, greater frequency of exposure to conservative talk radio independently corresponded to greater misinformation, while greater exposure to moderate programming was associated with being less misinformed, controlling for partisanship, ide ology, and a number of other predictors.

Rushed Decisions: Political Talk Radio and Vote Choice, 1994-1996

This paper examines the relationship between listening to conservative talk radio, as personified in the Rush Limbaugh Show, and voting for Republican candidates in the 1994-1996 congressional and presidential elections. I use a series of logistic regressions to test the relationship between listening and vote choice in House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections in 1994, relying on cross-sectional ANES data. I then capitalize on 1994-96 ANES panel data to explore the degree to which changes in vote choice between 1994 and 1996 can be accounted for by listening to Limbaugh. Results suggest that listening to Limbaugh may have substantially increased voter preference for Republican candidates. Exploration of this relationship serves to enhance understanding of the means by which political persuasion occurs, and the conditions under which mass media influence electoral behavior.

Media Favoritism and Presidential Nominations: Reviving the Direct Effects Model

This article explores the relationships among media favoritism, media reception, and candidate preference in the 2000 Democratic and Republican presidential nomination campaigns. Content analysis revealed significant media favoritism toward the candidacy of John McCain in the Republican contest but relatively balanced coverage of the Democratic contest. Accordingly, our empirical models reveal that media reception was substantially associated with a preference for McCain over Bush, but was not a consistent predictor in the Democratic race. But even more impressive (and surprising) were the relationships between listening to talk radio and candidate preferences, even among Democrats. Listening to Rush Limbaugh was strongly associated with preference for Bush among Republican primary voters, and for Bradley among Democratic primary voters. These collective results lend support to a classic interpretation of direct media effects, a perspective that had been largely abandoned in contemporary voting models.

Values as Heuristics: Core Beliefs and Voter Sophistication in the 2000 Republican Nomination Contest

Abstract One of the central questions of political psychology is how relatively uninformed citizens can make electoral decisions in a way that allows them to be meaningfully represented. We examine this question in the context of a presidential nominating election, a decision‐making environment complicated by the lack of powerful partisan or ideological cues. We suggest that in such contexts, voters use abstract value priorities as heuristics, without considerable reference to particular issue postures or even general ideological orientations. We further hypothesize that, in contrast to issue‐based or ideological voting, the accurate use of value heuristics is often little affected by voter sophistication, enabling even unsophisticated citizens to cast meaningfully representative votes. A study of vote intention during the 2000 Republican nomination contest provides empirical support for our hypotheses.