Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science

选举行为研究在美国政治行为研究中占有重要地位。然而，当候选人没有明确表明立场时，很少有人关注评估个人观点在评估候选人立场方面所起的作用。这一博士论文研究项目支持调查个人在多大程度上将自己的政治观点投射到那些在竞选信息中诉诸笼统和前后不一致的声明的候选人身上。本研究采用实验设计框架，考察了候选人问题立场的模糊性与个体投射之间的关系。人们会把自己的观点投射到一个模棱两可的候选人身上吗？如果是这样的话，这一过程背后的机制是什么？这种机制是否表明，候选人可以通过模棱两可获得更有利的形象？这些问题的答案将有助于我们理解选举政治，因为选民评价和候选人素质之间将有更明确的联系。特别是，这项研究将有助于描述(A)选民在多大程度上和条件下将自己的观点投射到候选人身上，以及(B)候选人可以在多大程度上通过模棱两可地表明其政策立场来管理他/她在选民中的印象。

The study of electoral behavior occupys a prominent place in research on American political behavior. However, very little attention has been directed toward assessing the role an individual's own views play in assessing a candidate's position, when the candidate has not made that position clear. This Doctoral Dissertation Research project provides support for an investigation of the extent to which individuals project their own political views onto candidates who resort to generalities and inconsistent statements in their campaign messages. Using an experimental design framework, this research examines the relationship between the ambiguity of candidate issue positions and individual projections. Do people project their own views onto an ambiguous candidate? If so, what mechanism underlies this process? And does this mechanism suggest that candidates can garner more favorable images by being ambiguous? The answers to these questions will contribute to our understanding of electoral politics, as more explicit links will be drawn between voter evaluations and candidate qualities. In particular, this research will help delineate (a) the extent to and conditions under which voters will project their own views onto a candidate, and (b) the extent to which a candidate can manage his/her impression among voters by being ambiguous about his/her policy positions.