Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology

by Paul M. Sniderman , Richard A. Brody , Phillip E. Tetlock

• ISBN13: 9780521407700
• ISBN10: 0521407702
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-07-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Drawing on a multitude of data sets and building on analyses carried out over more than a decade, this book offers a major new theoretical explanation of how ordinary citizens figure out what they favour and oppose politically. Reacting against the conventional wisdom, which stresses how little attention the general public pays to political issues and the lack of consistency in their opinions, the studies presented in this book redirect attention to the processes of reasoning that can be discerned when people are confronted with choices about political issues. These studies demonstrate that ordinary people are in fact capable of reasoning dependably about political issues by the use of judgmental heuristics, even if they have only a limited knowledge of politics and of specific issues.

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures

Preface

1. Introduction: major themes

2. The role of heuristics in political reasoning: a theory sketch

3. Values under pressure: AIDS and civil liberties

4. The principle-policy puzzle: the paradox of American racial attitudes

5. Reasoning chains

6. The likability heuristic

7. Democratic values and mass publics

8. Ideological reasoning

9. Information and electoral choice

10. Stability and change in party identification: presidential to off-years

11. The American dilemma: the role of law as a persuasive symbol

12. Ideology and issue persuasibility: dynamics of racial policy attitudes

13. The new racism and the American ethos

14. Retrospect and prospect

Notes

Bibliography

Index