Pamela Johnston Conover

The Origins and Meaning of Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications.

Although over the past few decades liberal/conservative self-identifications have often played a part in studies of belief systems, they have seldom been the focus of research. Recently, however, several studies have suggested that such identifications play a significant role in voting behavior and political perception. Implicit in this research, however, are two tenuous assumptions: that liberal/conservative identifications are bipolar in meaning and that underlying this bipolarity is cognitive meaning based on political issues. In this paper, we develop a model of ideological identifications that emphasizes their symbolic and nondimensional origins and nature. Based on the 1976 and 1978 National Election Studies, our empirical analysis reveals strong support for the model. Specifically, ideological identifications are found to have largely symbolic meanings, a fact that helps to explain some of the findings concerning the relationship of the liberal/conservative continuum to political perception and behavior.

How People Organize the Political World: A Schematic Model

A schematic model of political belief systems based on recent research in social and cognitive psychology is developed. We show that schema theory has the ability to bridge the gaps among the major competing approaches to the study of mass belief systems as well as provide direction for new research on the structure and functioning of political beliefs. An initial test of the theory, done with Q methodology, is reported and the results provide consistent support for the general predictions of schema theory as applied to political beliefs.

Candidate Perception in an Ambiguous World: Campaigns, Cues, and Inference Processes

Much theory and research shows that information about candidates issue positions is often difficult for members of the public to obtain: candidates typically do not go out of their way to make their positions clear; the media devote little time to covering candidates stands on the issues; and many voters have little interest or motivation to search out information about the candidates positions. Despite this, by election day a substantial number of voters are willing to identify the issue positions of the candidates, and these perceived positions are often good predictors of vote choice. In this paper we consider the question of how voters perceive candidates issue positions given limited information and high information costs. Our model posits that voters use previously acquired information to infer where candidates stand on the issues. In addition, characteristics of the candidates serve as cues that allow voters to make inferences from specific categories of people and politicians. Our analysis of panel data from the 1976 presidential election demonstrates the influence of these cues in the perception of the candidates and the role of the campaign in structuring the cues that voters use.

Gender, Feminist Consciousness, and War

In the post-World War II era, American women have been consistently less militaristic and more opposed to war than American men. Theorists, both feminist and not, have attributed such differences to gender itself, maternalism, and feminism. Drawing on the American National Election Study 1991 Pilot Study, we explore these hypotheses and discover no support for the maternalist explanation, some evidence in favor of the feminist accounting, and substantial support for the gender explanation. We also probe into the structure of political thinking in these areas and discover that the roots of womens and mens thinking usually differ even when they basically agree on the bottom line. In particular, mens attitudes are much more partisan in their origins than are womens.

The Role of Social Groups in Political Thinking

This article outlines a cognitive-affective model of the role of social groups in political thinking. The model is based on the assumptions that people have stored information and emotional reactions to social groups, and that people are purposive in their thinking about social groups in the sense that they are interested in understanding what various groups have obtained and whether it is deserved. The process through which social groups influence political thinking varies significantly depending upon whether an individual identifies with the group in question. Generally, people are more inclined to feel sympathetic towards the groups to which they belong. These ideas are illustrated with an empirical analysis that focuses on womens issues and makes use of data collected in the 1984 National Election Study Pilot Study.

The Personal and Political Underpinnings of Economic Forecasts

Recently, a great deal of attention has been focused on the impact of prospective evaluations of the economy on vote choice. Yet, little attention has been focused on the actual process whereby such evaluations are formed. This paper employs panel data to test a model of the formation of prospective evaluations of inflation and unemployment. Our findings indicate that retrospective assessments of economic conditions do not greatly influence economic forecasts. Instead, economic forecasts are shaped by personal economic circumstances and partisan assessments of governmental performance. The political implications of such findings are discussed.

Candidates, Issues and Voters: The Role of Inference in Political Perception

The study of political perception has been dominated by research on the perception of candidates issue positions, focusing on the processes of projection and persuasion. This research has limited our understanding of political perception by interpreting projection and persuasion narrowly in terms of cognitive balance theory. Only recently has the possible impact of candidate ambiguity on voters perception come to be appreciated. In this paper, we use a more comprehensive theory of perception to specify a series of lagged recursive equations and estimate the parameters using the CPS 1974-76 panel data. Our results provide no support for the persuasion hypothesis, and only limited evidence of projection. Rather, the inference of candidates issue positions from party positions and the candidates ideological stances are much more important factors in candidate perception.

Political Cues and the Perception of Candidates

Though typically they have not been the subject of systematic analysis, political cues are often depicted as having a major influence on voters perceptions of political candidates. In this regard, different interpretations have been offered by those adopting perceptual balance and rational choice perspectives. After reviewing the points of controversy separating these two approaches, a more comprehensive explanation of political cues is offered. In particular, the use of political cues is depicted as involving two key elements: the political cue and the political stereotype with which the cue is associated. The implications of this perspective for voter rationality are then discussed. Finally, some of the key hypotheses are tested, and found to be supported through the use of experimental data.

The dynamics of presidential support during international conflict situations: The Iranian hostage crisis

Public opinion data concerning President Carters handling of the Iranian hostage crisis are used to analyze (1) the factors that facilitate support for the Presidents handling of international conflict situations, and (2) the factors that influence the persistence of such support. Analysis reveals that support for the Presidents performance is enhanced if one holds a favorable personal image of the President, if ones own policy preferences are congruent with the Presidents actions, and if one belongs to the Presidents party. Over time, the impact of these factors grows, reflecting the fact that those who hold unfavorable images of the President, who disagree with the policies he is pursuing, and who belong to the opposition party fall out of the support coalition at an unusually high rate.

Group Identification, Values, and the Nature of Political Beliefs

What determines the political beliefs people hold? In this article, we investigate the role ofvalues and group identifications in structuring political beliefs. Viewing both as aspects of self-identity, we use Q methodology to discover overall patterns of personal and political values, and group identifications. We find that distinctive patterns of both elements of self-identity are identifiable, and that values and group identifications are interrelated. Furthermore, both have a substantial effect on issue positions that are independent of party and ideological self-identification.