Voters as Goal-Directed Information Processors: Candidate Traits As Prospective, Performance-Oriented Judgments

美国选民越来越多地被描绘成个人 关注候选人的个性和形象，而不是 候选人的意识形态或问题立场。 该提案借鉴了 最近的认知心理学研究，以开发和测试一个 这一趋势的解释。 具体来说，这项研究开发了 一种将选民视为“认知型”的候选人评估模型， 守财奴”的意思是，他们试图在 他们在投票决定中投入的思想量， 预测候选人未来行为的能力。 由于候选人有意模糊他们的政策立场， 鉴于在大多数情况下， 这个模型预测，选民将依靠 在评估候选人时越来越注重个性。 将进行一系列实验室实验来检验这一点 解释。受试者将接触各种类型的 包括问题位置、团体关系、 外观和个性关于竞争假设 候选人 对候选人评估的影响将是 测试. 当完成这项创新的研究将有助于确定不 不仅个性对候选人评价的影响， 政治中那些人格推论的来源 通信

American voters increasing are portrayed as individuals more concerned with the personalities and images of candidates than with candidate ideologies or issue positions. This proposal draws on recent research in cognitive psychology to develop and test an explanation of this trend. Specifically, this research develops a model of candidate evaluation which view voters as "cognitive misers" in the sense that they attempt to strike a balance between the amount of thought they invest in their voting decision and the likely ability of thought to predict candidate's future behavior. Since candidates intentionally obscure their policy positions and given the decreasing distinction between the parties in most voters' minds, this model predicts that voters will rely increasingly on personalities in evaluating candidates. A series of laboratory experiments will be undertaken to test this interpretation. Subjects will be exposed to various types of information including issue positions, group affiliations, appearance and personality regarding competing hypothetical candidates. The effects on candidate evaluation will then be tested. When completed this innovative research will help determine not only the influence of personality on candidate evaluation but also the source of those personality inferences in political communication.