Primacy of Affect in Automatic and Deliberative Processing of Political Persons, Groups, and Issues

在一个早期项目中进行的一系列实验中，采用了态度启动范式，研究人员发现了对政治领导人以及群体和问题的自动性的强烈支持。然后，为了探索先前的态度对政治判断的影响，研究人员观察了公民如何评价关于两项公共政策的争论，平权行动和枪支管制。他们发现了强有力的证据，特别是在那些对某个问题感觉最强烈、最了解的受试者中，存在先前态度效应、不确认和确认偏见，先前态度的所有这三种效应都促进了态度极化。 在这项调查的第一年，建立在政治领导人，团体和问题的自动性的基础上，研究人员测试了情感假设的基本前提。 他们的第一组研究探索了自动情感的产生和更新，其中一个实验使用了一个虚构的政治候选人，另一个实验使用了真实的但不知名的美国国会议员作为刺激。 在第二年和第三年，调查人员转向“那又怎样？“问题。他们进行研究测试的首要影响理论;也就是说：当一个人的影响是直接联系到一个政治对象，无论是领导人，团体，或问题，这种情感符合将是“主要的”，因为它首先进入判断过程，并主导随后的判断和评价从开始到结束。研究者从社会认同理论出发，探讨了一个人的政治认同是如何影响他的自我认同的（从政党、意识形态、和符号识别，然后转向最普遍的“我们”与“他们”素数）将自发地影响公民如何思考和评估直接或间接与自雇有关的新政治信息。在态度启动范式（排除有意识的考虑）中，研究者预测自我认同的启动会自动引发强烈的情感反应，这将显著影响一个人的政治态度、取向和判断。

In a series of experiments carried out under an earlier project employing an attitude priming paradigm, the researchers found strong support for the automaticity of affect toward political leaders, as well as for groups, and issues. Then to explore the impact of prior attitude on political judgment the researchers looked at how citizens evaluated arguments about two public policies, affirmative action and gun control. They found strong evidence, especially among those subjects who feel the strongest and are the most knowledgeable about an issue, of a prior attitude effect, a disconfirmation, and a confirmation bias, with all three of these effects of prior attitude promoting attitude polarization. In the 1st year of this investigation, building on the demonstration of the automaticity of affect for political leaders, groups, and issues the researchers test basic premises of the primacy of affect hypothesis. Their first pair of studies explores the creation and updating of automatic affect, with one experiment using a fictitious political candidate and the other using real but unknown U.S. Congressmen as stimuli. In years 2 and 3 the investigators turn to the "so-what?" question. They undertake studies testing the primacy of affect theory; to wit: that when one's affect is directly linked to a political object, be it leader, group, or issue, this affective tally will be "primary" in that it enters the judgment process first and dominates subsequent judgments and evaluations from start to finish. Taking their lead from social identity theory which links one's self identifications to affect the researchers explore how one's political identifications (starting with party, ideology, and symbolic identifications and then turning to the most general "we" vs. "they" primes) will spontaneously impact how citizens think about and evaluate new political information that is directly or indirectly linked to self Employing a subliminal variant of the attitude-priming paradigm (to rule out conscious considerations), the investigators predict that the priming of self-identification will automatically invoke a strong affective response which will significantly impact one's political attitudes, orientations, and judgments.