Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Motivation and the Context of Political Learning

政治学博士论文研究：政治学习的动机和背景

• 批准号: 0318058
• 负责人: Michael MacKuen
• 金额: $ 0.46万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0318058&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

This doctoral dissertation research support investigation is about how people acquire information from their environment, and how that context matters for assessing political outcomes. The central question considered is how and when people learn about politics. Specifically, the project integrates theories of individual level motivation with explanations rooted in political context, to explore how the information environment may either enhance or circumvent the effects of political interest in the promotion of political learning. To investigate the mechanisms of political learning, the Ph.D. student begins with an environment that has been shown to improve levels of political attention and information - a competitive campaign. Relying on a set of experiments in conjunction with survey data, two central questions are considered. First, can the political environment promote political learning, even in the absence of a motivation to follow current events? And if context does indeed promote the acquisition of political knowledge, then by what mechanisms does this occur? Next, the consequences of passive versus active learning are explored, considering whether people acquire different kinds of information, and rely on different kinds of decision criteria, when passively learning from the environment. To first more closely consider the mechanisms by which context affects political learning, a set of experiments are employed. The studies simulate a campaign context through a set of web-based information environments, with variation in both the nature of the information context as well as the incentives for political attention. In tracking patterns of information search as well as posttest evaluations of interest and information gains, the experiments offer a test of how context and motivation interact to affect both the amounts and kinds of political learning. Survey data offers a second test of these questions. Because presidential candidates rely on electoral college strategies, the states vary in the intensity of presidential campaigning. The consequences of these different campaign contexts on patterns of campaign attention and learning across the states are explored, considering explanations based on individual factors such as education, as well as contextual factors such as the volume of campaign advertising, the amount of presidential television coverage, and partisan divisions within the states. Also considered are the consequences of these contextual differences, and whether the context of a prominent presidential campaign influences evaluations of other concurrent campaigns. This is investigated by considering how the predictors of individual level congressional vote choice vary according to context, to see whether evaluations of the president and other national factors are more important evaluative criteria when the presidential campaign is more prominent. The research has broad social implications by developing some of the consequences of different types of political learning, particularly in the kinds of information people acquire either actively or passively, and how this matters for individuals and for political observers.

这篇博士论文研究支持调查是关于人们如何从他们的环境中获取信息，以及该背景如何影响评估政治结果。所考虑的核心问题是人们如何以及何时学习政治。具体而言，该项目将个人层面动机理论与根植于政治背景的解释相结合，探讨信息环境如何增强或规避政治兴趣对促进政治学习的影响。为了研究政治学习的机制，博士生从一个已经被证明可以提高政治关注和信息水平的环境开始——一个竞争性的竞选活动。依靠一系列实验和调查数据，我们考虑了两个核心问题。首先，政治环境能否促进政治学习，即使在缺乏关注时事的动机的情况下？如果环境确实促进了政治知识的获取，那么这是通过什么机制发生的？其次，考虑到人们在被动地从环境中学习时是否获得不同种类的信息，并依赖不同种类的决策标准，探讨了被动学习与主动学习的后果。为了首先更仔细地考虑情境影响政治学习的机制，我们采用了一系列实验。这些研究通过一组基于网络的信息环境来模拟竞选环境，这些环境在信息环境的性质和政治关注的动机方面都有变化。在跟踪信息搜索模式以及兴趣和信息获取的测试后评估中，实验提供了一个关于背景和动机如何相互作用影响政治学习的数量和种类的测试。调查数据为这些问题提供了第二次检验。由于总统候选人依赖选举人团策略，各州的总统竞选强度各不相同。本文探讨了这些不同的竞选环境对各州竞选注意力和学习模式的影响，考虑了基于教育等个人因素的解释，以及竞选广告数量、总统电视报道数量和各州党派分歧等背景因素。还考虑了这些背景差异的后果，以及一场著名总统竞选的背景是否会影响对其他同时进行的竞选的评价。通过考虑个人层面的国会投票选择的预测因素如何根据背景而变化来研究这一点，以了解当总统竞选更加突出时，对总统和其他国家因素的评估是否更重要。该研究通过发展不同类型的政治学习的一些结果，特别是人们主动或被动获取的信息类型，以及这对个人和政治观察者的影响，具有广泛的社会意义。