Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 1
On the Motivational Bases of Heterogeneity in Political Judgment Strategies
Abstract - What factors prompt citizens to switch from a partisan cue-taking judgment strategy,
one in which they reflexively side with the in-group in policy and electoral contests, to a more
thoughtful one, in which they pause to consider more valuable information? Previous work
suggests that heterogeneity in political reasoning is triggered by the experience of anxiety. In this
research, we examine a broader consideration: whether partisan cues provide adequate
confidence in the quality of one’s judgments. Using ANES panel studies, we examine how the
emotions of anxiety and enthusiasm influence the manner in which voters appraise presidential
candidates, update opinions on policy issues, and form perceptions of the economy. The results
consistently indicate that heterogeneity does not depend exclusively on anxiety, but on whether a
given emotion harmonizes or conflicts with one’s partisan identity. Findings are discussed in
terms of the paths to adaptive partisanship and responsible citizenship.
Word Count – 8,490
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 2
Over the past half century, two broad questions have dominated the study of mass
political behavior. First, how – by what reasoning processes – do ordinary citizens form their
political judgments? And second, how “good” are they from a normative perspective? To address
these questions, political scientists have focused on variation in two key dimensions of mass
political thought: its depth and objectivity (Lau and Redlawsk 2006; Sniderman, Brody and
Tetlock 1991). Consistent with the portrayal of the American public as awash in political
ignorance and lacking in political interest (Bennett 1989; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996),
empirical studies indicate that judgments about policies and candidates tend to be quick,
reflexive, and shallow, often bearing little relation to the most diagnostic information (Druckman
2001; Kam 2005; Rahn 1993). Moreover, research on motivated reasoning demonstrates that
citizens are often more interested in gratifying partisan expectations than in forming evenhanded
judgments that respect the available “evidence” (Bartels 2002; Jacobson 2010; Lodge and Taber
2012; Redlawsk 2002; Taber and Lodge 2006). In summarizing their work on political
information processing, Lau and Redlawsk (2006: 13) conclude that “most decisions are better
understood as semiautomatic responses to frequently encountered situations than as carefully
weighed probabilistic calculations of the consequences associated with the different
alternatives.”
At times, however, citizens are more thoughtful, critical, and open-minded in their
approach to politics (e.g., Basinger and Lavine 2005; Hillygus and Shields 2008; Kam 2006;
Marcus et al. 2000). Rather than digging in their partisan heels and ignoring readily available
information, individuals are occasionally willing to devote substantial cognitive resources in
making their judgments, and to show a stronger desire to be accurate than to shore up their
partisan identities. For example, Hillygus and Shields (2008) find that voters are responsive to
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 3
campaign information when they disagree with their party on a personally important policy issue.
Under these circumstances, citizens turn out not to be hard-headed motivated reasoners, but
rational (i.e., prospectively-oriented) policy voters. In related work, Kam (2006) finds that
intense campaigns for the House and Senate increase the extent to which voters form balanced
reactions toward the candidates. She concludes that “intense campaigns not only give citizens
food for thought, but they also encourage them to digest it more slowly – to ruminate and engage
in open-minded thinking” (p. 939). This variation in political thinking has led to the
identification of two idealized strategies by which people learn about, evaluate and engage with
the political world: resolute partisanship and reflective deliberation (MacKuen, Wolak, Keele
and Marcus 2010).
The two forms of reasoning serve different goals and lead to judgments of varying
normative quality. Reflective deliberation – in which citizens “consider alternative views, switch
perspectives, [and] consider new and possibly contradictory evidence” (Kam 2006: 932) – is a
validity-seeking strategy in which political beliefs reflect an attempt to grapple with the
substantive merit of competing claims. By contrast, resolute partisanship serves directional goals
(i.e., coming to pre-fabricated conclusions designed to uphold standing commitments),
facilitating political engagement and commitment to the partisan in-group. It can also promote a
tribal “us” versus “them” mindset, enhancing psychological equanimity at the cost of accurately
perceiving political reality or understanding the implications of one’s preferences. Steadfast
partisan cue-taking also provides an opportunity for elites to engage in manipulation, i.e., to craft
particular phrases and presentations to “change public opinion and create the appearance of
responsiveness as they pursue their [own] desired policy goals” (Jacobs and Shapiro 2000: iv).
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 4
The major question we wish to address in this article is when—under what conditions—
will citizens be motivated to think in a deliberative manner about their political choices, and
more importantly, why? Specifically, what prompts citizens to switch from a partisan cue-taking
strategy, one in which they reflexively side with the in-group in policy and electoral contests, to
a more thoughtful one, in which they pause to consider more valuable information? For example,
what determines whether citizens rely on their material circumstances in forming preferences on
salient economic issues? Or when will they reason: “I favor a progressive tax system because I
value social equality,” rather than “I favor a progressive tax system because I am a Democrat and
that’s what Democrats favor.” While it might be argued that the two forms of reasoning produce
the same outcomes – especially as the electorate has become increasingly “sorted” along
partisan-ideological lines (Abranowitz 2010; Levendusky 2009) – the connections among party
identification, income, policy preferences, and core values are not that strong.1 Therefore,
perceptions and preferences reached on the basis of partisan cues will perforce be quite different
from those rooted in one’s values and interests.
Political scientists have often acknowledged that in constructing their judgments,
individuals take account of different considerations and attach different weights to them (e.g.,
Basinger and Lavine 2005; Gomez and Wilson 2001; Lau and Redlawsk 2006; Sniderman et al.
1991; Zaller 1992). To date, research has focused most frequently on dispositional differences in
cognitive ability. Whether referred to as “level of conceptualization,” “sophistication,”
“awareness,” or “knowledge,” or measured simply as years of education, the traditional view is
that a small number of “able” citizens are more likely than the ill-informed masses to form their
1 Data reported by Levendusky (2009: 46-49) and Abramowitz (2010: 45) indicate that the percentage of the electorate that is sorted on policy issues has increased only weakly between 1972 and 2004. As examples, consider that the zero-order correlations between party identification and tax preferences (using data from the 2008 ANES Panel Study) is .35; the correlation between party ID and income (using the same 2008 data) is .16; and the correlation between party ID and support for limited government in 2004 is .35.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 5
political judgments using complex decision rules that focus on the most diagnostic information
(Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996; Kam 2005; Sniderman et al. 1991).
However, sophistication turns out to be a double-edged sword. While it facilitates
political understanding, it also makes it easier for citizens to engage in biased reasoning to
defend their political attitudes (Bartels 2008; Gaines et al. 2007; Jacobson 2010; Lodge and
Taber 2012; Kuklinski et al. 2008; Taber and Lodge 2006). Traditional ability-centered
approaches also ignore citizens’ motivation to acquire and use political information. If well-
informed citizens can manage to attain sufficient confidence in their political judgments through
reliance on cost-saving cues alone (e.g., party identification), they should rationally choose to
ignore other relevant information, even if that information is highly diagnostic to the decision,
and even if they are capable of acquiring it (Downs 1957; Lupia and McCubbins 1998). Finally,
as MacKuen et al. (2010) have noted, ability-related approaches assume that individuals apply
the same decision strategies across contexts. By contrast, a large body of research in psychology
(and a growing one in political science) indicates that people reach their political judgments
through a variety of strategies, depending on the situation (for reviews, see Chaiken and Trope
1999; Druckman and Lupia 2000; Lavine et al. 2012; Payne, Bettman and Johnson 1993).
In the next section, we review research that focuses on voters’ incentives to behave more
as resolute partisans or reflective deliberators.2 In particular, we contrast two broad motivational
perspectives on the circumstances under which voters are expected to rely principally on
partisanship in making their policy and electoral judgments, and when they are expected to think
more deeply and evenhandedly about their choices: affective intelligence theory (Marcus et al.
2000, 2011) and partisan ambivalence theory (Basinger and Lavine 2005; Hillygus and Shields
2 We are not suggesting that these two strategies constitute discrete categories; rather, they are theoretical endpoints of a continuum along which individuals rely increasingly on costly information (see Chaiken et al. 1989; Petty and Cacioppo 1986).
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 6
2008; Lavine et al. 2012). We then present several empirical tests to distinguish between these
two perspectives, and conclude that responsible citizenship need not be precipitated by the
experience of anxiety, but may come about through other pathways.
Motivational Theories of Heterogeneous Political Judgment
The hypothesis that political judgments depend on citizens’ informational incentives can
be traced to Downs (1957). However, it was Marcus and colleagues who provided both a
powerful empirical demonstration of the primacy of motivation as well as a rigorous intellectual
framework to explain it (MacKuen et al. 2010; Marcus 1988; Marcus and MacKuen 1993;
Marcus et al. 2000). Relying on insights from neuroscience (e.g., Damasio 1994; Grey 1981;
LeDoux 1996), they argue that the nature of political reasoning lies in the experience of emotion
Specifically, Marcus and his colleagues have developed a theory of affective intelligence, in
which the key emotions of enthusiasm and anxiety – viewed as the products of functionally
distinct bio-behavioral regulatory systems – determine how citizens construct their political
judgments. The “disposition system,” which mediates the emotion of enthusiasm, responds to
positive incentives by directly initiating habit-based behavior. A second system, referred to by
Marcus et al. (2000) as the “surveillance system,” detects threat and danger in the environment.
Activation of the surveillance system results in the emotion of anxiety, which interrupts ongoing
habitual action and promotes increased thoughtfulness and greater motivation for learning.
Applied to the realm of mass political judgment, enthusiasm is expected to motivate
political participation and to increase voters’ reliance on their political habits (e.g., party
identification). Anxiety, by contrast, is expected to lead voters to turn away from habitual
responses and devote more attention to diagnostic information in the environment. In line with
affective intelligence theory (hereafter AIT), Marcus et al. (2000) have shown that anxious
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 7
voters (a) pay greater attention to the political environment and acquire more information about
candidates’ policy stands; (b) rely less on partisanship and more on policy preferences and
assessments of candidate character in forming candidate evaluations; and (c) defect at higher
rates in presidential elections (see also Marcus and MacKuen 1993). Brader (2006) provided
more powerful evidence of the role of anxiety by manipulating it experimentally in the context of
political advertising. He found that compared to an emotionally pallid ad, a fear ad – which was
intended to produce anxiety – led to greater attentiveness and more persuasion. Finally, anxiety –
though not anger or enthusiasm – has been found to increase the quantity and quality of
information processing, including the desire for balance and compromise (MacKuen et al. 2010;
Valentino, Hutchings, Banks and Davis 2008). Taken together, this work suggests that anxiety
leads to political decisions that are more informed by contemporary information and less by
partisan loyalty. In the language of dual-process theories of cognition, anxiety reduces heuristic
processing and stimulates systematic processing.
The affective intelligence model has gained wide acceptance in political science.
However, reflective deliberation may arise through pathways other than anxiety. If opportunities
for citizens to take a sober second look derive from a broader set of dynamics, we should expect
to observe good citizenship (in the form of high quality judgments) more of the time. A large
body of research on persuasion and social judgment in psychology indicates that people are
motivated to attain a certain degree of confidence in the “correctness” of their decisions, and that
they will seek out (and deliberate about) information until actual confidence matches or exceeds
the desired level (Chaiken and Trope 1999). Most relevant here, when party behavior and
performance undermine the reliability of partisan brand names (e.g., profligate Republican
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 8
spending under George W. Bush), partisan cues become less trustworthy, and thereby lose their
power as judgment guides (Lupia and McCubbins 1998).
Partisan ambivalence theory (Basinger and Lavine 2005; Lavine et al. 2012) proposes
that the degree of confidence citizens may derive from partisan cues depends on the extent to
which contemporary evaluations of party behavior and performance dovetail with expectations
derived from long-term partisan identifications. In line with the general theory of cognitive
consistency (Festinger 1957), citizens should have a strong preference for harmonizing their
affective attachments and their contemporary perceptions of performance. However, when the
information flow about one’s own party becomes persistently negative (or when the other party
performs consistently well), efforts to maintain equilibrium inevitably break down. Under
normal circumstances, partisans may be quick to blame the out-party and credit the in-party, but
they are not entirely immune to how economic swings, scandal, and the quality of domestic and
foreign policy management reflect on party competence and leadership. Expressed in
psychological terms, the process of motivated reasoning is not unbounded. A disequilibrium is
therefore likely to arise when perceptions of the parties’ behavior are out of step with normal
expectations, for example, when the in-party (i.e., one’s own party) is plagued by scandal, when
it embraces issue positions that are inconsistent with core ideological principles, or when it fields
poor candidates, presides over economic downturn, or mismanages an international conflict or a
domestic emergency.
The central idea is that when identity-based expectations are disconfirmed by perceptions
of party behavior, the habit of partisanship loses much of its heuristic value. Specifically, this
disjuncture undermines the belief that partisan cues can effectively substitute for more detailed
(but costlier) information. To pick up the judgmental slack, ambivalent partisans should engage
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 9
in deeper, more effortful thought about their political options. For example, they may devote
more attention and thought to candidates’ policy stands in deciding whether to support them, and
may rely more on their personal economic circumstances in forming public policy preferences.
Moreover, ambivalent partisans should hold judgments that are less demonstrably plagued by
partisan bias, as they are less likely to view political reality through a partisan lens.
Experimental research in psychology corroborates that ambivalence reduces judgment
confidence, motivates individuals to devote greater cognitive resources to judgment tasks, and
increases accuracy. In one study, Jonas, Diehl and Bromer (1997) manipulated ambivalence by
associating a new consumer product with either evaluatively consistent or inconsistent features.
They found that those assigned to the latter (ambivalent) condition held less confidence in their
initial attitudes toward the product, and as a result engaged in greater elaboration of its attributes
in deciding whether to purchase it. In another persuasion experiment, Maio, Bell and Esses
(1996) linked ambivalence with deliberative thinking by presenting individuals with either strong
or weak arguments in favor of increased immigration of a minority group. They found that
among those with ambivalent attitudes toward the group, persuasion depended on the cogency of
the substantive arguments, such that more opinion change was observed in the strong (vs. weak)
arguments condition (indicating deliberative reasoning). By contrast, non-ambivalent
respondents ignored the substantive merit of the arguments and simply relied on their prior group
attitudes in expressing their policy opinions, indicating heuristic (habit-based) thinking.
Studies by political scientists on electoral perception and judgment provide converging
evidence on the impact of ambivalence. For example, Meffert, Guge and Lodge (2004) found
that ambivalence toward presidential candidates was associated with less confidence but greater
accuracy in placing them on policy issues. Basinger and Lavine (2005) and Hillygus and Shields
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 10
(2008) found that when voters held beliefs that conflicted with their partisan identities, they
relied more on policy and less on partisanship in their voting decisions. And Lavine et al. (2012)
found that ambivalent partisans relied more on real economic signals (e.g., changes in GDP and
unemployment) and less on partisanship in forming retrospective judgments of economic
performance. In sum, by motivating citizens to think more deeply and more objectively about
their political options, partisan ambivalence may (1) be a broad determinant of whether citizens
act more like resolute partisans or reflective deliberators, and (2) account for the effects of
anxiety in past research (e.g., Marcus et al. 2000).
When Do Citizens Rely on Costly Information?
Affective intelligence holds that the motivation to engage in reflection and reevaluation
hinges specifically on activation of the surveillance system, that is, on the perception of threat
and the experience of anxiety. However, negative evaluations of one’s own party represents only
one route by which a disjuncture between partisan identity and party evaluations may occur. It
may also result from holding positive evaluations of the other party. For example, in signing
NAFTA and welfare reform and in acknowledging that “the era of big government is over,”
President Clinton improved the Democratic Party brand among moderate Republicans (Lebo and
Cassino 2007).3 As approval of the out-party does not logically entail the activation of the
surveillance system or the experience of anxiety (just the opposite we would think), its influence
in stimulating deliberative thought is difficult to square with AIT. If positive evaluations of the
out-party enhance deliberative reasoning just as do negative evaluations of the in-party, then: (1)
AIT is in need of theoretical revision; and/or (2) adaptive political behavior may arise from other
circumstances.
3 As, of course, did the economic super-boom that Clinton presided over during his second term.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 11
The predictions of the two frameworks in the context of candidate evaluation are depicted
in Figure 1.4 According to AIT (see top panel), only feelings of anxiety modulate the degree to
which party identification and issue preferences drive candidate evaluations. Enthusiasm toward
the in-party candidate, by contrast, is hypothesized to exert a direct (positive) effect on voters’
electoral preferences. According to AIT, then, enthusiasm and anxiety exert functionally distinct
effects on political judgment. According to partisan ambivalence theory (hereafter PAT; see
bottom panel), the political effects of enthusiasm and anxiety depend entirely on whether they
constitute identity-conflicting or identity-consistent reactions. Anxiety experienced in relation to
the candidate of one’s own party or enthusiasm for the candidate of the opposing party –
hereafter “in-candidate anxiety” and “out-candidate enthusiasm” – should undermine judgment
confidence on the basis of partisan cues, as both emotions (so directed) are in conflict with one’s
partisan identity. In-candidate enthusiasm and out-candidate anxiety, however, reinforce one’s
partisan identity, and should thus heighten citizens’ confidence in standing (partisan) decisions.
4 The illustrations are inspired by Ladd and Lenz (2008).
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 12
Figure 1. Graphical Depictions of AIT and PAT
A. Affective Intelligence Theory
B. Partisan Ambivalence Theory
-
+
+
IssuePreferencesParty ID
CandidateEvaluation
Anxiety
Enthusiasm
--
IssuePreferences
-
+
+
Party ID
CandidateEvaluation
In-Anxiety and Out-
Enthusiasm
Out-Anxiety and In-
Enthusiasm
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 13
Hypotheses
We conducted several empirical tests to determine the factors that prompt citizens to
move from a reflexive partisan cue-taking strategy to one in which they pause to consider more
valuable (but costly) information. In each case, AIT predicts that only anxiety (especially toward
the in-party candidate) instigates systematic thinking, i.e., less reliance on party and more
reliance on costlier information. By contrast, PAT predicts that the experience of identity-
conflicting emotions (whether in the form of anxiety or enthusiasm) leads to more systematic
(and less habit-based) thinking, and that the experience of identity-consistent emotions has the
opposite effects (i.e., increasing reliance on party and decreasing reliance on costlier
information). Our first tests examine the pattern of heterogeneity in the context of electoral
choice. We then examine the bases of preference updating on policy issues. Here we determine
the extent to which updating reflects partisan polarization or increased alignment with material
interests, and whether AIT or PAT better captures the pattern of observed heterogeneity. Last,
we examine changes in economic perceptions from January to November of 2008. Although the
economy was in steep decline throughout the year, Republicans – as in-partisans – were less
likely than Democrats to hold veridical perceptions. We examine whether variation in
judgmental accuracy among Republicans is better captured by AIT or PAT.
Data and VariablesData
We rely on three datasets to distinguish between AIT and PAT: the American National
Elections Studies (ANES) cumulative file; the 2008 ANES Panel Study; and the 1992-1996
ANES Panel Study. The cumulative file merges all election studies from 1948-2008, and
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 14
contains most items asked in at least three election years. The variables required for our analyses
appear in all presidential election years from 1980-2008.
VariablesCandidate Emotions. Beginning in 1980, the ANES has asked respondents about their
emotional reactions toward the presidential candidates. The question asks: “Has [candidate] –
because of the kind of person he is, or because of something he has done – made you feel
[emotion term]?” In the February wave of the 2008 panel study, the question read: “When you
think about (Barack Obama/John McCain), how [emotion term] does he make you feel?”
Responses were dichotomous (yes/no) in the 1980-2008 cumulative file surveys and in the 1992-
1996 panel study, and ranged from one (“not at all”) to five (“extremely”) in the 2008 panel
study. In all surveys, respondents were asked about four discrete emotions: “afraid,” “angry,”
“hopeful,” and “proud.” Consistent with Marcus et al. (2000), we combined the proud and
hopeful items separately for each candidate as a measure of candidate-specific enthusiasm, while
responses to the afraid item were used as a measure of candidate-specific anxiety.5
Partisanship and Partisan Strength. In all surveys, partisan identification was a
dichotomized measure coded “1” for Republicans and “0” for Democrats (leaners included). In
the 2008 panel study, we utilized the measure from the January wave of the survey. Partisan
strength was measured by folding the 7-point ANES partisanship item at its midpoint, so that
0=leaners, 1=weak partisans and 2=strong partisans (independents excluded).
Comparative Issue Distance. Following Marcus et al. (2000), issue-based candidate
evaluation was measured via comparative candidate issue distance. Specifically, we calculated
the absolute distance between the respondent’s position on a given issue and his or her
5 While Marcus et al. (1993, 2000) originally measured candidate anxiety with both the “afraid” and “angry” items, they have recently reconceptualized the latter as “aversion” (Marcus, MacKuen, Wolak and Keele 2006; MacKuen et al. 2010; see also Valentino et al. 2008). We thus exclude the anger item from the measure.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 15
perception of each candidate’s position. For each issue, we then subtracted the absolute distance
from the Republican candidate from the absolute distance from the Democratic candidate, and
averaged across issues. In the cumulative file analysis, the issues were defense spending, foreign
policy orientation toward the USSR, women’s role in society, government aid to black
Americans, government versus private health insurance, government spending and services, and
government guaranteed jobs and income. We use the average for all available issues for each
respondent in this calculation. In the 2008 panel study, the issues (assessed in the January wave
for respondents’ positions, and in the June wave for candidate perceptions) included a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, raising taxes on those making more than
$200,000 per year, raising taxes on those making less than $200,000 per year, government-
provided prescription drugs for seniors on low income, government-provided healthcare for all
Americans, imprisonment of suspected terrorists without charging them with a crime,
warrantless wiretapping, temporary work visas for illegal immigrants, and a path to citizenship
for illegal immigrants.
Economic Retrospections. Economic perceptions were measured in both the January
and November waves of the 2008 panel study. In each wave, the question read: “Now thinking
about the economy in the country as a whole, would you say that as compared to one year ago,
the nation’s economy is now better, about the same, or worse?” Responses on the final scale
ranged from one (“much worse”) to five (“much better”).
Candidate Choice. Following Marcus et al.’s (2000, 2011) recommendation, candidate
choice was assessed by voting intentions in the pre-election wave of the cumulative file surveys.
This measure was not available in the 2008 panel study (nor was vote choice). Therefore, in the
February and October waves of the study, we used a measure of comparative candidate
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 16
evaluation, taking the difference between respondents’ attitudes toward McCain and Obama. The
question read: “Do you like [Barack Obama/John McCain], dislike him, or neither like nor
dislike him?” Responses ranged from one (“dislike a great deal”) to seven (“like a great deal”),
with values of four corresponding to “neither like nor dislike.”
Controls. In all analyses, we control for age, gender, education, income, and an indicator
for black respondents. We also controlled for political knowledge and partisan strength, both as
first-order terms and in interaction terms with party identification, comparative issue proximity
(in the candidate choice analyses), and material interest (in the preference updating analysis).6
This provides some assurance that any contingent effects of emotion are not a function of
dispositional differences in these traditional engagement variables. All variables were recoded on
a zero to one scale prior to analysis.
Results
Heterogeneity in Candidate Appraisal Processes
We begin by modeling vote intentions in the ANES cumulative file, pooling the data
from 1980 (when the emotion terms debuted) through 2008. Specifically, using ordered probit,
we modeled voting intentions (Democrat=-1; Undecided=0; Republican=1) on the basis of the
four emotion items (in- and out-candidate anxiety and enthusiasm), partisanship, comparative
6 In 2008, political knowledge was gauged using six civics questions: How many times can one be elected U.S. president? For how many years is a U.S. senator elected? How many U.S. senators are there from each state? For how many years are U.S. representative elected? What is the presidential succession after the Vice-President? What is the veto override percentage needed in the U.S. House and Senate? (α= .57). To maintain consistency across time, we utilize two items to measure knowledge in the ANES cumulative file: the interviewer’s subjective rating of the respondent’s political knowledge, and the respondent’s knowledge of which party controlled the House of Representatives. In 1992, we rely on the interviewer’s subjective rating of the respondent’s knowledge, as the civics items asked in that survey were coded in such a way that missing data were conflated with incorrect and “don't know” responses.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 17
issue proximity and the controls. To gauge whether and how the emotion terms conditioned the
bases of intentions, we also included eight interactions: party ID x each emotion term, and issue
proximity x each emotion term. We also included separate interactions of political knowledge
and partisan strength with both party ID and issue proximity (as well as the first-order terms). As
Figure 2 indicates, seven of the eight interaction terms involving emotion were statistically
significant (all but for the interaction of issue proximity and in-candidate anxiety), with the
overall pattern strongly supporting PAT (see column labeled “vote”). As the coefficients
indicate, both types of identity-conflicting reactions – out-candidate enthusiasm and in-candidate
anxiety – depressed voters’ electoral reliance on party; moreover, the former had the
corresponding effect of heightening reliance on issues. By contrast, the two identity-consistent
reactions – in-candidate enthusiasm and out-candidate anxiety – had the opposite effects: both
factors heightened voters’ reliance on party and diminished their reliance on issues.
In Figure 3, we translate the coefficients into changes in the predicted probability of
voting Republican as a function of partisanship (top panel) and issue proximity (bottom panel).
As the top panel shows, out-candidate enthusiasm reduced the marginal effect of partisanship by
nearly 80 percentage points, whereas in-candidate enthusiasm had the opposite effect –
increasing the role of partisanship by about 75 points. The role of anxiety similarly depended on
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 18
Figure 2. Regression Coefficients, All Models
Cut 6Cut 5Cut 4Cut 3Cut 2Cut 1
IncomeEducation
GenderAge
Lagged PrefsIss/Econ x OEIss/Econ x IE
Iss/Econ X OA
Iss/Econ X SophIss/Econ x IA
Iss/Econ x StrengthPID x OEPID x IE
PID x OAPID x IA
PID x SophPID x Strength
OEIE
OAIA
SophisticationPID StrengthIssues/Econ
Party ID
Black
-5 0 5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 -2 0 2 4 -2 0 2 4 -2 0 2 4
Vote Evals08 Insure92 Taxes08 EconRetros08
Notes: IA=In-Party Anxiety, OA=Out-Party Anxiety, IE=In-Party Enthusiasm, OE=Out-Party Enthusiasm.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 19
Figure 3. Conditional Effects of Partisanship and Issue Proximity on Presidential Voting, 1980-2008
A. Partisanship
0.2
.4.6
.81
Mar
gina
l Effe
ct o
f Par
tisan
ship
on
Pr(
Vot
e R
ep)
In-Anxiety Out-Anxiety In-Enthusiasm Out-Enthusiasm
Low High
B. Issues
0.2
.4.6
.81
Mar
gina
l Effe
ct o
f Iss
ues
on P
r(V
ote
Rep
)
In-Anxiety Out-Anxiety In-Enthusiasm Out-Enthusiasm
Low High
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 20
whether it constituted an identity conflicting or consistent reaction. Anxiety toward the in-party
candidate reduced the effect of partisanship by 28 percentage points, whereas anxiety toward the
out-party candidate magnified the role of party by 17 percentage points (ps < .01). The bottom
panel of Figure 3 shows the corresponding dynamics for issues. Per PAT, both identity-
conflicting emotions substantially heightened respondents’ reliance on issues: out-candidate
enthusiasm by 73 percentage points and in-candidate anxiety by about 30 points. By contrast,
both identity-consistent emotions substantially decreased respondents’ reliance on issues: in-
candidate enthusiasm by over 60 percentage points, and out-candidate anxiety by nearly 40
points. As AIT holds that only anxiety (i.e., not enthusiasm) conditions party and issue voting, it
appears that PAT may provide a better explanation for the dynamic effects of emotion on
political judgment.
However, because the emotion and vote intention variables were measured at the same
time, it is possible that the former is endogenous to the latter (i.e., disliking a candidate leads to
anxiety; liking a candidate leads to enthusiasm). Ladd and Lenz (2008) proposed such an
endogenous affect mechanism to account for the indirect effect of anxiety in a pooled cross-
sectional analysis using the same ANES data presented in the leftmost numerical column of
Figure 2 (minus the elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008). Specifically, Ladd and Lenz argued that
the positive interaction between anxiety and comparative policy distance could occur in the
absence of anxiety playing a causal role. To test their endogenous affect explanation, Ladd and
Lenz modeled third wave candidate evaluation in the 1980 ANES Major Panel Study as a
function of second wave explanatory variables (including anxiety and a lagged measure of
candidate evaluation). If endogenous affect is responsible for the interactions (between anxiety
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 21
and partisanship and anxiety and issue proximity), they should disappear when anxiety is
measured in a prior wave. This is exactly what Ladd and Lenz found.
Perhaps, then, the pooled cross-sectional results we reported in Figures 2 and 3 can be
explained by endogenous affect. To determine whether this is the case, we turn to the 2008
ANES Panel Study. In this analysis, we use lagged measures of party ID and issue proximity,
and a lagged measure of candidate evaluation (measured in June). By controlling for prior
candidate evaluations, we can examine how voters’ electoral preferences (in October) changed
over the course of the campaign, and determine the extent to which such changes are driven by
partisans versus policy considerations (measured in January). More importantly, by using panel
data, we rule out endogenous affect by design (see Ladd and Lenz 2008). Specifically, we
modeled comparative candidate evaluations in October as a function of evaluations in June, the
four emotions items, partisanship, issue proximity, the relevant interaction terms, and all
controls. The model was estimated via ordinary least squares with robust standard errors.
The statistical results, shown in Figure 2 (under the column “Evals”), indicate that the
shift from party- to issue-based candidate evaluation is driven by enthusiasm (not anxiety), and
in ways that (again) conform to the expectations of PAT. Predicted candidate evaluation scores,
calculated across levels of the constituent terms of the interactions (holding all other variables at
their means), are displayed in Figure 4. As the figure indicates, voters who are unenthusiastic
about the other party’s candidate rendered their evaluations on the basis of partisan loyalty, with
policy considerations making no statistically appreciable contribution: the difference in candidate
evaluation between Republicans and Democrats is .29 (i.e., reflecting an effect of 29 percentage
points), whereas the impact of issues (i.e., the difference between those at the 5th and 95th
percentile values of the comparative issue proximity scale) is .05 (effectively
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 22
Figure 4. Conditional Effects of Partisanship and Issue Proximity on Candidate Evaluations in the 2008 Presidential Election
-.20
.2.4
.6
Pre
dict
ed M
argi
nal E
ffect
on
Eva
luat
ions
In-Enth Out-Enth In-Anx Out-Enth
Partisanship Comparative Issue Distance
Low High
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 23
zero). By contrast, those who do express enthusiasm for the other party’s candidate are issue
voters. Among these respondents, the impact of party and policy are reversed: the difference in
candidate evaluation between those with policy stands closer to Obama and those with policy
stands closer to McCain is .40; the corresponding impact of party is only .11. Thus, all else
equal, experiencing positive emotion toward the other party’s candidate substantially reduces
voters’ electoral reliance on partisanship, and substantially increases their reliance on policy
agreement. Moreover, voters who are enthusiastic about their own party’s candidate rely on party
ID at more than twice the rate of those lacking such enthusiasm, all else equal (bs = .32 and .15;
p < .01). Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, AIT’s signature effect – that in-candidate anxiety
shifts voters’ electoral reliance from party to issues – failed to obtain.7
In sum, none of these findings follow from AIT; however, they are consistent with PAT.
As voters experience more identity-conflicting feelings (in this case, enthusiasm), they derive
less confidence in their electoral judgments on the basis of partisan loyalty. To pick up the slack,
they turn to more diagnostic information, namely their issue preferences. By contrast, the more
voters experience identity-consistent feelings, the more confidence they derive from partisan
loyalty, and thus the more they use it as a judgmental yardstick (and the less they rely on the
more difficult calculus of issue distance). Moreover, none of these findings can be accounted for
by endogenous affect.
Preference Updating on Economic Issues: Partisan Polarization or Material Interest?
In this section, we examine systematic variation in how citizens update their policy
preferences on economic issues in the wake of intense national debate. We focus first on how
attitudes toward healthcare reform evolved over the first two years of Clinton’s presidency. We
7 Indeed, surprisingly, we find a marginally significant decline in the use of issues as a function of in-candidate anxiety. Given the inefficiency of the estimate, however, this effect should be treated with caution.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 24
then examine preference updating on taxes during the 2008 presidential campaign. Healthcare
reform was the dominant policy emphasis during 1993-1994: the president devoted several major
policy speeches to the topic; the issue was extensively covered in the media; and the insurance
lobby funded an expensive television advertising campaign to defeat the eventual bill. The issue
was thus highly salient to the public (Dancey and Goren 2010; Jacobs and Shapiro 2000).
We contrast two basic processes by which citizens may have responded to this flood of
information. First, they may have chosen to receive and/or accept policy messages only from
fellow partisans, leading to preference adjustments resulting in greater alignment with co-
partisan elites (Zaller 1992). Alternatively, they may have been less attuned to the partisan
source of the message than to its actual content. If so, citizens may have given greater
consideration to how the alternatives resonated with their own material circumstances.
According to AIT, anxiety should depress the influence of party-based preference and heighten
the influence of contemporary information – in this case, how the parties’ positions fit with
citizens’ current economic predicaments. PAT, by contrast, predicts that the switch from
partisanship to material interest as the basis of preference updating will depend, as in the case of
electoral judgment, on the broader pattern of identity conflicting and consistent emotions.
Specifically, the experience of identity-conflicting emotions should shift the locus of attitude
change from partisan cues to personal economic predicaments, whereas the experience of
identity-consistent emotions should depress the role of personal economics and facilitate partisan
polarization.
Preference Updating, 1992-1994. The ANES included a battery of items in the 1992
wave of the 1992-1996 Panel Study to assess personal economic insecurity. These items ask
whether in the past year, one (and one’s family) (a) was better or worse off than a year ago; (b)
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 25
put off making planned purchases (including medical and dental treatments); (c) borrowed
money from relatives, friends or a financial institution to make ends meet; (d) dipped into
savings; (e) looked for a second job or worked more hours at one’s present job; (f) saved money
(reverse coded); and (g) fell behind on a rent or house payment. Together, the items provide a
broad and internally consistent portrait of an individual’s current economic predicament (α
= .76). We averaged them to form a composite measure of personal economic insecurity
(0=secure; 1=insecure).
We used this measure to predict attitudes toward government-provided national
healthcare in 1994. The item in both the 1992 and 1994 waves of the panel study read:
There is much concern about the rapid rise in medical and hospital costs. Some people feel there should be a government insurance plan which would cover all medical and hospital expenses for everyone. Others feel that all medical expenses should be paid by individuals, and through private insurance plans like Blue Cross or other company paid plans. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you thought much about this? (1=government insurance plan; 7=private insurance plans)
The analysis includes the same controls as before (all measured in 1992), as well as a lagged
(1992) measure of health care preference. Unsurprisingly, citizens use partisanship to update
their preferences over time: controlling for baseline differences in 1992, Republicans were 17
percentage points more conservative in their preferences than Democrats by 1994, holding all
other variables at their central tendencies. By contrast, the corresponding effect for personal
economic insecurity is -.02 (effectively zero).
The key question we wish to address is how the emotion terms altered the influence of
these two focal explanatory variables on preference updating. Most importantly, do the effects of
partisanship and material circumstances (which are only weakly correlated, r1992 = .26, with
Republicans being more secure) depend on anxiety (as AIT claims) or on whether the emotions
constitute identity conflicting or consistent reactions (as PAT claims)? Figure 2 (column labeled
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 26
Figure 5. Conditional Effects of Partisanship and Personal Economic Condition on Health Insurance Preferences
-.50
.51
Pre
dict
ed M
argi
nal E
ffect
on
Pre
fere
nces
Out-Anxiety Out-Enthusiasm
Partisanship Personal Economic Condition
Low High
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 27
“Insure92”) reveals two significant conditional effects of emotion: anxiety toward the other
party’s candidate heightened the impact of partisanship on preference change, and enthusiasm
toward the other party’s candidate heightened the impact of personal economic insecurity. Both
findings follow from PAT (but not AIT). As Figure 5 shows, a positive change in identity-
consistent emotion (qua out-candidate anxiety) more than tripled the impact of partisanship on
preference updating (from .10 to .30, p<.05), with Democrats moving to the left and Republicans
moving to the right. Strikingly, policy updating among these individuals was entirely unrelated
to their contemporaneous economic predicaments. Thus, for example, economically insecure
Republicans who experienced anxiety toward Bill Clinton in 1992 ignored the policy
implications of their pocketbooks and toed the party line in opposing health care reform.
Figure 5 also shows that identity-conflicting emotion (in this case, out-candidate
enthusiasm) substantially heightened the effect of personal economic insecurity. All else equal,
preference updating among these individuals was driven primarily by material considerations,
the effect of which increased from -.01 to .42 (indicating that the economically secure are 42
percentage points more opposed to reform than the insecure, controlling for baseline preferences
in 1992). This is a substantively meaningful and statistically significant shift.
Preference Updating, January-October 2008. We now consider the extent to which
partisanship shaped preferences over taxes during the 2008 presidential campaign. Both
candidates clearly signaled their preferences on the issue, with Obama vowing to let the Bush tax
cuts expire on the top two percent of income earners, and McCain pledging to maintain them.
We model October tax preferences on the wealthy (>$2000,000) as a function of lagged
preferences in January, partisanship, the emotion items, their interactions with partisanship, and
all controls. As the 2008 ANES panel study does not contain items sufficient to
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 28
Figure 6. Conditional Effects of Partisanship on Tax Preferences in the 2008 Presidential Election
0.2
.4.6
Mar
gina
l Effe
ct o
f Par
tisan
ship
(Rep
- D
em)
Out-EnthIn-Enth Out-Anx
Low High
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 29
operationalize economic insecurity, we examine the conditional influence of partisanship only.
Specifically, we gauge the extent to which Republicans and Democrats polarized with respect to
their preferences over the course of the campaign. The key interaction estimates, shown in
Figure 2 (under the column “Taxes08”) support PAT. Both identity-consistent emotions (out-
candidate anxiety and in-candidate enthusiasm) facilitate partisan polarization, while the
identity-conflicting emotion of out-candidate enthusiasm decreases polarization. The
corresponding predicted probabilities are plotted in Figure 6. For the two identity-consistent
emotions, moving from low to high increases polarization by 15 and 26 percentage points,
respectively. Conversely, for the identity-conflicting emotion (out-candidate enthusiasm), a
change from low to high decreases polarization by 16 points.
Perceptions in Flux: The Economic Collapse of 2008
The 2008 ANES panel study provides an opportunity to examine the bases of individual-
level change in economic perceptions over the course of a presidential campaign in which the
outlook changed dramatically. Of particular interest here is perceptual heterogeneity among
Republicans (as partisan supporters of the president during a precipitous downtown). We model
changes in perceptions between January and November, a period that straddled several high-
profile economic events, including a plunge in the Dow Jones of more than 5,000 points (a
nearly 40 percent drop), the collapse of two major Wall St. financial institutions, and dire
warnings in late September by the Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary (and ultimately the
president) of a complete meltdown in the U.S. economy. Our primary question is whether
variability in the pattern of belief updating among Republicans is better predicted by AIT or
PAT. To address this question, we model citizens’ economic retrospections in November as a
function of their retrospections in January, partisanship, the four
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 30
Figure 7. Conditional Partisan Bias in Economic Retrospections, November 2008
0.2
5.5
.75
1
Pre
dict
ed P
roba
bilit
y
MW SW SS MW SW SS MW SW SS MW SW SS
Democrats Republicans
Low Out-Enthusiasm High Out-Enthusiasm
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 31
emotions items, the relevant interactions and all controls. By controlling for lagged economic
perceptions and by measuring the explanatory variables at lagged time points relative to
perceptions in November, the potential for endogenous affect to distort the estimates is removed
by design.
We estimated the model via maximum likelihood with an ordered probit link. The key
interactions, displayed in Figure 2 (under the column labeled “Retros08”), indicate a substantial
decline in the effect of partisanship as out-candidate enthusiasm increases, a result consistent
with PAT. Indeed, neither of the anxiety items conditions partisan bias in economic evaluations.
In Figure 7, we plot the predicted probabilities of membership in each of the three populated
retrospection categories (“much worse,” “worse,” “stayed the same,” denoted in the figure as
MW, W, and SS; very few respondents perceived the economy to have improved during 2008).
The left side of the figure shows the predicted probabilities for Democrats, the right side for
Republicans. As can be seen, out-candidate enthusiasm has no impact on the retrospections of
Democrats (i.e., the black and grey bars are virtually identical). Nor should it. Whether due to
partisan bias or because they are paying attention, Democrats are expected to hold negative
perceptions of economic change in November of 2008.
The picture is quite different for Republicans. At low levels of out-candidate enthusiasm,
we observe substantial amounts of partisan bias in retrospections. Indeed, at the lowest level of
this moderator (i.e., those with no enthusiasm for candidate Obama, which represents more than
one-third of Republicans), only 66 percent are expected to report that the economy had gotten
“much worse” over the past year. Even more surprisingly, more than a quarter of the remaining
40 percent (about 8% overall) were expected to report that the economy “stayed the same”
during this period. In line with PAT, Republicans who were enthusiastic about Obama in January
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 32
were substantially more attentive to the economic environment, with more than 90 percent
perceiving the economy to have gotten “much worse.”
Discussion and Conclusions
An important thrust of contemporary work on political judgment is that perceptions and
preferences are reached through a diverse and flexible set of cognitive strategies. The strategy
adopted is likely to depend on the political context and on the individual’s capabilities and goals.
Political reasoning is thus contingent: sometimes voters rely primarily on their partisan habits,
ignoring more diagnostic information (even if they are capable of acquiring it), while at other
times they taken in more (or better) information and engage in more effortful reflection and
reevaluation. The purpose of our investigation was to identify and test a relatively general
mechanism by which this contingency in political thinking works, and to use our findings to
clarify when, why, and how frequently we might expect to observe adaptive partisanship and
responsible democratic citizenship.
Past work on the contingent nature of political judgment has focused on the idea that
voters will abandon party cues and think more carefully about issues and candidates when they
experience anxiety (Marcus and MacKuen 1993; Marcus et al. 2000). We contrasted this
expectation with a broader framework based on two longstanding insights about the nature of
mass political thought: (1) party identification is the most important predisposition in the
political systems of ordinary Americans; and (2) people make strategic use of their cognitive
resources: when possible, they will minimize decision effort by relying on simple rules, but will
step up their thinking when cognitive shortcuts do not provide for sufficient judgment confidence
(Chaiken and Trope 1999; Lupia and McCubbins 1998).
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 33
We acknowledge that voters can and do use a wide range of informational shortcuts in
deciding what policy options to support and what electoral choices provide the most attractive
outcomes. In many and probably most political contexts, however, partisan loyalty serves as a
general anchor from which adjustments, typically insufficient ones, are made in judging the
political landscape. Whether because partisanship is a product of early affective socialization
(Campbell et al. 1960); because the party system constrains the public’s menu of choices and
attaches well-known, easily identifiable brand names to the competing options (Jackman and
Sniderman 2002); or because citizens simultaneously attempt to make it easy, get it right, and
maintain cognitive consistency when forming judgments – or for all of these reasons –
partisanship as a heuristic cue stands out in terms of its breadth, inferential power, and cognitive
efficiency.
However, responsible democratic citizenship (e.g., holding office-holders accountable,
maintaining policy control) requires that individuals be willing – at least at key times – to judge
the political landscape independently of their partisan commitments. Given the fact that partisan
identities and material circumstances are nearly orthogonal (the correlation in the 2008 ANES
panel is .16; it averages .20 over the entire length of the ANES series), delegating one’s
preferences to partisan elites while ignoring the policy implications of one’s material interests
will often lead to sub-optimal judgments (at least from a simple economic perspective). More
perniciously, reflexive cue-taking diminishes the responsiveness of elites to the public’s policy
wishes. In Politicians Don’t Pander, Jacobs and Shapiro (2000) argue that politicians conduct
extensive public opinion polling and focus groups to identify the most powerful “language,
arguments and symbols” to persuade the public to support its extremist policy goals (see also
Luntz 2007). They (2000: 5) write that “competing efforts to tip public evaluations of policy
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 34
proposals transformed ‘public opinion’ from an autonomous, external influence into a product of
an endogenous process.” Good citizenship therefore requires a mechanism for determining when
simple partisan cue-taking is a reasonable strategy, and when it needs to be supplemented by
some independent thought about the details.
Thus, our empirical effort focused on what moves citizens to eschew toeing the party line
and to consult more substantive considerations (such as material interests). We distinguished
between two theories in this regard: the anxiety-focused perspective of affective intelligence
theory, and partisan ambivalence theory, in which a disjuncture between contemporary party
evaluations and affective partisan attachments provides a signal about the reliability of partisan
cues. We contrasted the two perspectives by examining how two key emotions that have been the
mainstay of research on AIT– anxiety and enthusiasm – influence how voters engage in three
basic tasks of democratic citizenship: evaluating presidential candidates, updating opinions on
policy issues in the wake of a national debate, and perceiving changes in the macro economy. All
but one of our results was based on panel data, in which the explanatory variables were measured
prior to the dependent variable, and in which a lagged measure of the latter was included as a
predictor. This provides a good measure of protection against the scourge of endogeneity, as well
as a conservative test of our hypotheses.
The results, based on three sets of independent samples, provided converging evidence
that heterogeneity does not depend exclusively on anxiety, but on the broader consideration of
whether a given emotion harmonizes or conflicts with one’s partisan identity. In each analysis,
the experience of (one or more) identity-conflicting emotions decreased the role of partisanship
and increased the role of more costly information, whereas the experience of (one or more)
identity-consistent emotions had the opposite effect. Moreover, in direct contradiction to AIT,
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 35
the effects were stronger and more reliable for enthusiasm than anxiety. As the former does not
logically entail activation of the surveillance system or the experience of anxiety, these results do
not fit neatly into the AIT framework. As we carefully controlled for both political knowledge
and partisan strength (both as first-order terms and in product terms with focal predictors), the
observed effects cannot be attributed to these standard engagement factors. Moreover, as Figure
2 attests, once identity conflicting and consistent partisan evaluations are in the model, political
sophistication and partisan strength failed to stratify respondents’ reliance on costly information.
What seems to matter, then, is not whether voters experience one particular discrete
emotion (e.g., anxiety), or whether they are highly engaged in politics, but whether they can
derive adequate judgment confidence on the basis of low-effort cues alone. Contemporary
partisan evaluations that conflict with the judgmental implications of party cues undermine
confidence, leading citizens to think more carefully. By contrast, partisan evaluations that
dovetail with party cues enhance confidence, fostering shallower (and potentially biased)
judgments. Where does this leave AIT? Despite the fact that our critical tests seem to cast doubt
on its validity, we believe this is an unwarranted conclusion. Rather, we believe that both
theories are tenable but under different circumstances. AIT may provide a better explanation of
heterogeneity in the moments when anxiety is experienced as a full-throttle, physiological event
(as opposed to indicating in a survey whether a candidate has “ever made you anxious”). When
in the active throes of anxiety, it is eminently adaptive to set aside habit and focus on the most
important information (e.g., Kahneman 2011). Over time, however, the urgency of an emotional
reaction decays, leaving a residual evaluative response. If this evaluative response is out of step
with one’s partisan attachment, it should produce little in the way of judgment confidence, and
thereby instigate a change in the process by which politics is perceived and evaluated. Under
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 36
these circumstances, and all of those in which anxiety is irrelevant, PAT would appear to provide
the better explanation.8
The question of how much and what kind of knowledge citizens need to fulfill their role
in a democratic society has been hotly debated by political scientists (Bennet 1988; Delli Carpini
and Keeter 1996; Fishkin 1991; Habermas 1989; Lupia and McCubbins 1998). There would
appear to be a consensus that the Progressive Era ideal of the “informed citizen” – one who
regularly keeps abreast of important political developments and who evaluates politics
independent of party elites – is unattainable. Given the far more immediate and personal
concerns that people face in their day-to-day lives (e.g., raising children, working, engaging in
social relationships), politics rarely rises to the level of a compelling spectacle. At its very core,
however, the concept of democracy implies the constraint of representatives by citizens. In a
political world where partisan cues are utilized unthinkingly, citizens effectively become the
agents of elite interests, as the latter learn that they may take actions (e.g. make policy
statements) with impunity. The dynamic between citizens and elites then becomes one of, in the
words of Shapiro and Jacobs (2000; 2010), “simulated representation,” whereby elites, rather
than seeking to bend their positions to the median, simultaneously shape opinion and
claim responsiveness to a majoritarian will. Our research suggests that citizens – or least the 90
percent who identify with (or lean toward) one party or the other – are equipped with a broadly
functional tool for protecting themselves against this form of tyranny.
8 However, the relevance of PAT is bounded by circumstances in which partisanship itself is relevant. Several recent tests of AIT were conducted in either explicitly non-partisan contexts (e.g., primary elections; Brader 2005) or in ones in which partisanship was not directly invoked (MacKuen et al. 2010; Valentino et al. 2008).
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 37
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Supporting Information
The supporting information includes the regression tables for each of the models included
in figure 2. Table 1 corresponds to column 1 of figure 2, table 2 to column 2, etc. We include one
additional model in the supporting information that was excluded from the main body of the
paper for space considerations.
This additional model is included in column 2 of table 4. It is a model of preference
formation over the course of the 2008 presidential campaign on the issue of government-
provided health insurance. The setup of the model is the same as with the tax preference model.
We model October preferences as a function of lagged preferences in January, partisanship, the
emotion items, their interactions with partisanship, and all controls The only significant
moderator of partisanship is in-candidate enthusiasm. As predicted by PAT, this emotion
increases the marginal effect of partisanship from .14 to .50.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 43
Table 1. Vote Intention, ANES Cumulative File_______________________________________________Variable B SE p_______________________________________________Age .00 .01 .85Gender .04 .05 .38Black -.53 .08 .00Hispanic -.18 .09 .03Education .18 .09 .04Income .11 .09 .22Interest -.04 .08 .62Republican .75 .13 .00Relative Issue Distance 4.31 .71 .00Strength -.35 .27 .19Sophistication -.74 .39 .06In-Anxiety .02 .30 .94Out-Anxiety .46 .25 .07In-Enthusiasm -.36 .28 .20Out-Enthusiasm -.38 .28 .18
Rep X Strength .38 .12 .00Rep X Sophistication .32 .16 .04Rep X In-Anxiety -1.13 .12 .00Rep X Out-Anxiety .97 .12 .00Rep X In-Enthusiasm 3.02 .12 .00Rep X Out-Enthusiasm -2.95 .13 .00Issues X Strength .35 .56 .53Issues X Sophistication .67 .78 .39Issues X In-Anxiety .83 .58 .15Issues X Out-Anxiety -1.55 .52 .00Issues X In-Enthusiasm -2.64 .58 .00Issues X Out-Enthusiasm 3.85 .57 .00Intercept -1.98 .37 .00
N 7395_______________________________________________Notes: Entries are ML ordered probit coefficients and standard errors.. The link function is ordered probit.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 44
Table 2. Comparative Candidate Evaluations, ANES 2008 Panel_____________________________________________________Variable B SE p_____________________________________________________Lagged Evaluations .50 .04 .00Age -.02 .02 .49Male -.01 .01 .25Black .00 .02 .91Education -.03 .02 .16Income -.04 .03 .18Economic Retrospections .08 .03 .00Republican -.02 .06 .74Relative Issue Distance .19 .18 .27Partisan Strength -.03 .03 .37Sophistication -.05 .07 .45In-Anxiety .15 .09 .10Out-Anxiety -.09 .04 .06In-Enthusiasm -.10 .05 .06Out-Enthusiasm -.06 .08 .44
Rep X Strength .14 .04 .00Rep X Soph .09 .06 .12Rep X In-Anx .03 .07 .68Rep X Out-Anx .06 .06 .32Rep X In-Enth .17 .05 .00Rep X Out-Enth -.25 .07 .00Issues X Strength -.06 .09 .54Issues X Soph -.06 .17 .73Issues X In-Anx -.35 .20 .09Issues X Out-Anx .17 .13 .18Issues X In-Enth -.12 .14 .39Issues X Out-Enth .46 .19 .01Constant .24 .08 .00
R^2 .81N 725
_____________________________________________________Notes: Entries are OLS coefficients and robust standard errors. The dependent variable is measured in Oct. Partisanship and economic retrospections are measured in January. Emotions and lagged evaluations are measured in February. Comparative issue distance is calculated as a function of respondents’ issue positions in February and their perceptions of candidate positions in June.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 45
Table 3. Preference Formation on Health Insurance, ANES 1992-1994 Panel____________________________________________________________________Variable B SE p _________________________________________________________Lagged Preferences 1.13 .19 .00Age -.14 .25 .60Male .09 .12 .44Black -.14 .19 .47Education -.15 .24 .54Income .37 .24 .13Unemployed -.14 .23 .55Republican .40 .43 .35Personal Economic Conditions -.05 .76 .95Partisan Strength .06 .34 .87Sophistication .27 .53 .62In-Anxiety -.63 .38 .10Out-Anxiety -.34 .29 .24In-Enthusiasm -.19 .37 .61Out-Enthusiasm -.96 .39 .01Rep X Strength .34 .29 .24Rep X Soph -.16 .49 .75Rep X In-Anx .23 .31 .45Rep X Out-Anx .53 .25 .03Rep X In-Enth -.21 .34 .54Rep X Out-Enth -.35 .35 .32Economic X Strength -.18 .59 .76Economic X Soph -.82 .94 .38Economic X In-Anx .79 .62 .20Economic X Out-Anx .31 .49 .52Economic X In-Enth .64 .61 .29Economic X Out-Enth 1.37 .62 .03Cut 1 -.75 .44Cut 2 -.38 .44Cut 3 .08 .44Cut 4 .73 .44Cut 5 1.16 .44Cut 6 1.71 .44Pseudo R^2 .10N 407
____________________________________________________________________Notes: Entries are ML ordered probit coefficients and standard errors. The dependent variable is measured in 1994, and all independent variables are measured in 1992.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 46
Table 4. Preference Formation on Taxes and Health Insurance, ANES 2008 Panel_______________________________________________________________________
Taxes on >$200K Govt. Health Insurance
Variable B SE p B SE p_______________________________________________________________________Lagged Preferences 2.54 .18 .00 2.10 .16 .00Age -.10 .27 .71 -.32 .26 .23Male .09 .11 .41 .05 .11 .62Black .21 .27 .44 .17 .27 .54Education .32 .22 .14 .05 .22 .82Income .59 .28 .04 .75 .28 .01Republican -.90 .43 .04 .38 .42 .36Partisan Strength -.27 .19 .16 -.03 .18 .87Sophistication -.96 .35 .01 .30 .34 .37In-Anxiety .44 .34 .19 .30 .33 .36Out-Anxiety -.65 .30 .03 .44 .27 .10In-Enthusiasm -.36 .30 .23 -.76 .28 .01Out-Enthusiasm .23 .35 .50 .62 .34 .07
Rep X Strength .39 .27 .15 .28 .27 .29Rep X Soph 1.51 .47 .00 -.09 .46 .84Rep X In-Anx -.45 .54 .40 -.72 .52 .17Rep X Out-Anx .92 .38 .02 .03 .36 .93Rep X In-Enth 1.06 .41 .01 1.07 .41 .01Rep X Out-Enth -.84 .48 .08 -.71 .48 .14
Cut 1 -.03 .35 .60 .33Cut 2 .85 .35 1.17 .33Cut 3 1.12 .35 1.31 .33Cut 4 1.95 .36 2.22 .34Cut 5 2.12 .36 2.34 .34Cut 6 2.70 .37 3.03 .35
Pseudo R^2 .27 .24N 513 512
_______________________________________________________________________Notes: Entries are ML ordered probit coefficients and standard errors. The dependent variable is measured in October, lagged issue preferences and partisanship are measured in January, and emotions and sophistication are measured in February.
Heterogeneous Political Judgment, p. 47
Table 5. Economic Retrospections, ANES 2008 Panel________________________________________________Variable B SE p________________________________________________Lagged Retrospections 2.01 .23 .00Age -.48 .23 .04Male -.02 .10 .86Black .27 .23 .24Education -.33 .19 .09Income .04 .24 .85Republican .66 .40 .09Partisan Strength .06 .20 .75Sophistication -.37 .34 .27In-Anxiety .09 .37 .82Out-Anxiety .05 .29 .85In-Enthusiasm -.15 .30 .61Out-Enthusiasm -.12 .36 .73
Rep X Strength -.25 .26 .32Rep X Soph .39 .42 .36Rep X In-Anx -.23 .49 .63Rep X Out-Anx -.42 .35 .23Rep X In-Enth .36 .38 .35Rep X Out-Enth -1.13 .47 .02
Cut 1 .93 .34Cut 2 1.90 .34Cut 3 3.18 .39Cut 4 3.73 .49
Pseudo R^2 .15N 982
________________________________________________Notes: Entries are ML ordered probit coefficients and standard errors. The dependent variable is measured inNovember, lagged retrospections and partisanship are measured in January, and emotions and sophistication are measured in February.