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

在采用态度启动范式的早期项目下进行的一系列实验中，研究人员发现，对政治领导人以及对群体和问题的影响是自然而然的，这一点得到了强有力的支持。然后，为了探索先前态度对政治判断的影响，研究人员观察了公民如何评估关于两项公共政策--平权行动和枪支管制--的争论。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和最了解某个问题的受试者中，发现了先前态度效应、不一致性和确认偏差的有力证据，先前态度的这三种效应都会促进态度两极分化。在本研究的第一年，研究人员在对政治领袖、团体和议题的情感的自动性进行论证的基础上，检验了情感优先假设的基本前提。他们的第一对研究探索了自动情感的产生和更新，其中一项实验使用了一位虚构的政治候选人，另一项实验使用了真实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“那么-什么？”问题。他们进行研究，检验情感理论的至高无上；换句话说，当一个人的情感与一个政治对象直接相关时，无论是领导人、团体还是问题，这种情感计分将是“主要的”，因为它首先进入判断过程，并自始至终主导随后的判断和评估。研究人员从社会认同理论入手，探索了一个人的政治认同(从政党、意识形态和象征性认同开始，然后转向最普遍的“我们”和“他们”)如何自发地影响公民对直接或间接与自我有关的新政治信息的思考和评价，并使用态度启动范式的潜意识变量(以排除有意识的考虑)，预测自我认同的启动将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.