John L. Sullivan

FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND ISSUE VOTING: DO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES "WALTZ BEFORE A BLIND AUDIENCE?"

VWhile candidates regularly spend much time and effort campaigning on foreign and defense policies, the thrust of prevailing scholarly opinion is that voters possess little information and weak attitudes on these issues, which therefore have negligible impact on their voting behavior. We resolve this anomaly by arguing that public attitudes on foreign and defense policies are available and cognitively accessible, that the public has perceived clear differences between the candidates on these issues in recent elections, and that these issues have affected the publics vote choices. Data indicate that these conclusions are appropriate for foreign affairs issues and domestic issues.

An Alternative Conceptualization of Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases 1950s–1970s

This article proposes an alternative conceptualization of political tolerance, a new measurement strategy consistent with that conceptualization, and some new findings based upon this measurement strategy. Briefly put, we argue that tolerance presumes a political objection to a group or to an idea, and if such an objection does not arise, neither does the problem of tolerance. Working from this understanding, we argue that previous efforts to measure tolerance have failed because they have asked respondents about groups preselected by the investigators. Those groups selected as points of reference in measuring tolerance have generally been of a leftist persuasion. Our measurement strategy allowed respondents themselves to select a political group to which they were strongly opposed. They were then asked a series of questions testing the extent to which they were prepared to extend procedural claims to these self-selected targets. Using this approach, we found little change between the 1950s and the 1970s in levels of tolerance in the United States, a result that contradicts much recent research on the problem.

The Sources of Political Tolerance: A Multivariate Analysis

Over the past 25 years a number of conclusions concerning the development of political tolerance have come to be well accepted in the literature on political behavior. There are, however, two persisting problems with the studies that have generated these findings: they have relied on a content-biased measure of tolerance, and have failed to examine well specified models of the factors leading to tolerance. In this article we report the results of an analysis of the determinants of political tolerance using a content-controlled measure of tolerance and a more fully specified multivariate model. The parameters of the model are estimated from a national sample of the U.S. The results indicate the explanatory power of two political variables, the level of perceived threat and the commitment to general norms, and psychological sources of political tolerance. Social and demographic factors are found to have no direct effect and little indirect influence on the development of political tolerance.

On the Relationship Between Attitude Involvement and Attitude Accessibility: Toward a Cognitive-Motivational Model of Political Information Processing

A model of the relationship between attitude involvement and attitude accessibilitywas developed and tested. The model specifies that attitude involvement leads to selective(biased) issue-related information-gathering strategies, which in turn produce extreme andunivalent (unambivalent) attitudes. Finally, attitudes associated with univalent and extremeunderlying structures should occasion relatively little decision conflict and thus should be highlyaccessible. Questionnaire response data gathered in a national telephone survey and from twosamples of undergraduates revealed that both attitude extremity and attitude ambivalence onselected political issues mediated the relationship between attitude involvement and attitudeaccessibility. Some findings indicated that selective processing mediated the relationshipbetween attitude involvement and attitude extremity and ambivalence. Discussion focuses on theprocesses linking involvement to accessibility, the factors that moderate theambivalence-accessibility relationship, and the relevance of the model to media-based primingeffects and tothe nature of public opinion and the survey response.

Platelet MAO in subtypes of alcoholism

A number of investigators have observed low platelet monoamine oxidase (MAO) activity in alcoholism. There is also preliminary evidence suggesting that low enzyme activity is principally associated with one of two putative subtypes of alcohol dependence, i.e., type II (male limited). The results of this study are consistent with two previous reports of reduced platelet MAO activity in type II male alcoholics as compared with type I male alcoholics and normal, healthy male controls. Type I (milieu-limited) alcoholics showed a smaller reduction in enzyme activity. The observed differences do not appear to be related to concurrent use of other psychoactive substances, characteristic differences in age between type I alcoholics and type II alcoholics, antisocial personality disorder, or variation in platelet size. Low platelet MAO activity in alcoholics is possibly related to both state and trait factors and may be a useful biochemical measure to assist with subtyping.

Divergent Perspectives on Citizenship Education: A Q-Method Study and Survey of Social Studies Teachers

This study explored the views of contemporary social studies teachers on citizenship education. Q-technique was used to discern the principal conceptions held by teachers in two small samples. Minnesota teachers held three perspectives (cultural pluralism, communitarianism, and legalism) and teachers nationally held four perspectives (critical thinking, legalism, cultural pluralism, and assimilationism). Analysis of a large national sample survey of social studies teachers allows us to ascertain the popularity of each perspective generally and the characteristics of teachers who hold each perspective. Implications for citizenship education in a multicultural society are discussed.

Patriotism, Politics, and the Presidential Election of 1988

Recent circumstantial and journalistic evidence suggests that the patriotism issue may have helped George Bush win the 1988 election. Yet there has been little systematic scholarly assessment of the role patriotism plays in U.S. electoral politics. While there is a small empirical literature on patriotic attitudes, researchers have not availed themselves of recent scholarly work that treats patriotism as a historical concept with contested meanings. Within the framework of a historical-conceptual understanding of patriotism, we used Q-methodology to collect data on patriotism perspectives from diverse groups of citizens and used the results of these studies to conduct an R-methodology survey of a representative sample from the community. Results of the survey show that people who understand patriotism symbolically, emotionally, or instinctively were particularly susceptible to George Bushs rhetorical appeals to patriotism and the flag. Indeed, these appeals had a strong influence on their vote choice, in favor of Bush. Voters who understood patriotism in alternative ways, however. were not induced by the Bush campaigns rhetorical strategy into voting for Bush for president.

Threat, Authoritarianism, and Voting: An Investigation of Personality and Persuasion

The authors examined whether the influence of persuasive messages emphasizing reward versus threat was moderated by authoritarianism. Five days before the 1996 presidential election, participants (N = 86) received either a reward-related message (emphasizing the positive benefits of voting) or a threatrelated message (emphasizing the negative consequences of failing to vote) recommending that they vote in the election. We found that high authoritarians perceived the threat message as stronger in argument quality than the reward message, and low authoritarians perceived the reward message as stronger in argument quality than the threat message. In turn, subjective perceptions of message quality exerted a direct influence on participants’ postmessage attitudes toward voting in the election. Finally, behavioral intentions mediated the influence of voting attitudes on actual voting behavior. Discussion focuses on the implications of the message frame and authoritarianism.

Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization Among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States

In this article, we present data showing that national legislators are more tolerant than the public in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Two explanations for this phenomenon are presented and assessed. The first is the selective recruitment of Members of Parliament, Knesset and Congress from among those in the electorate whose demographic, ideological and personality characteristics predispose them to be tolerant. Although this process does operate in all four countries, it is insufficient to explain all of the differences in tolerance between elites and the public in at least three countries. The second explanation relies on a process of explicitly political socialization, leading to differences in tolerance between elites and their public that transcend individual-level, personal characteristics. Relying on our analysis of political tolerance among legislators in the four countries, we suggest how this process of political socialization may be operating.

The relationship of national and personal issue salience to attitude accessibility on foreign and domestic policy issues

Research on issue voting indicates that the impact of a given attitude on the candidate appraisal process depends on its personal importance or salience (e.g., Krosnick, 1988). In the present research, we suggest that salient attitudes may be more influential because they are more cognitively accessible in memory relative to less salient attitudes. Results based on within-subject, between-issue comparisons indicate that individuals have more accessible attitudes toward issues that are highly salient to them than toward issues that are relatively less salient. Results also indicate that attitude accessibility is more closely associated with the personal importance of an issue than with the perceived national importance of an issue. Finally, in applying this accessibility analysis to the debate on the relative electoral influence offoreign versus domestic issues, we find that attitudes on the latter are more accessible and more likely to arouse self-interest. Discussion focuses on developing process models of political cognition and behavior, and on the utility of accessibility theory in providing insights into these processes.