A Process of Tracing Study of Information Search and "Rational" Decision Making in Elections

选举信息搜寻与“理性”决策的追踪研究过程

• 批准号: 9321236
• 负责人: Richard Lau
• 金额: $ 12.5万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1994
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1994-06-01 至 1996-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9321236&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Process; Tracing; Study; Information; Search

9321236 Lau The vote decision is made in the context of a dynamic ever- changing information environment, and yet the chief methodology with which political scientists study elections, surveys, is a static one. This investigation explores the information acquisition and choice strategies employed by voters during political campaigns with a new research technique, a dynamic process tracing methodology, that allows the vote decision to be studied while it is being made. The essence of this methodology is to provide information about (fictitious) candidates in a manner that allows the researchers to record and study the way in which that information is gathered. This is accomplished by the use of modern, multi-media computer technology. Information about candidates (e.g., policy positions; background/personal characteristics) is stored in the computer; however, only brief "labels" for this information (Smith' stand on issue "A") are visible and the information must be physically "accessed" (by clicking a mouse) for it to be learned. The labels "scroll" down the computer screen so that only a limited amount of information is available at any given time. This scrolling emulates the dynamic, ongoing nature of political campaigns. The implications of this research for models of the vote decision and for basic theories of democracy are significant. A new methodology is developed that, for the first time, will allow a direct assessment of how voters, with more or less personal resources (i.e., expertise), gather information about candidates involved in political campaigns in more or less demanding situations. With this methodology scientists can explore how expertise and broad campaign strategies affect the ways information is gathered and combined into a decision, and how those factors affect the normative "correctness" of the vote choice. These are new questions for political scientists, and this methodology promises to open many new fertile research qu estions for study. ***

小行星9321236 投票决定是在动态的不断变化的信息环境中做出的，然而政治学家研究选举的主要方法，调查，是静态的。 本调查探讨了信息采集和选择策略的选民在政治活动中采用了一种新的研究技术，一个动态的过程跟踪方法，使投票决定进行研究，而它正在作出。 这种方法的实质是提供关于（虚构的）候选人的信息，使研究人员能够记录和研究收集信息的方式。 这是通过使用现代多媒体计算机技术来实现的。 关于候选人的信息（例如，政策立场;背景/个人特征）被存储在计算机中;然而，只有用于该信息的简短“标签”（Smith在问题“A”上的立场）是可见的，并且该信息必须被物理地“访问”（通过点击鼠标）以使其被学习。 这些标签在计算机屏幕上向下滚动，因此在任何给定的时间只有有限的信息可用。 这种滚动模拟了政治竞选活动的动态和持续性质。 这项研究对投票决定模型和民主的基本理论的影响是重要的。开发了一种新的方法，首次允许直接评估选民如何使用或多或少的个人资源（即，（c）在要求或多或少的情况下收集有关参与政治竞选的候选人的信息。 通过这种方法，科学家可以探索专业知识和广泛的竞选策略如何影响信息收集和组合成决策的方式，以及这些因素如何影响投票选择的规范性“正确性”。 这些都是政治科学家的新问题，这种方法有望为研究开辟许多新的肥沃的研究领域。 ***