Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Role of Political Attitudes in Social Interaction Dyads

在对人类行为进行了60年的研究后，政治学家得出的结论是，美国人对政治知之甚少，对政治事务感兴趣，从事政治行为，或在意识形态上受到限制。然而，关于人际关系的学术研究表明，这些美国人在选择社交网络和选择讨论伙伴时，似乎明确地使用了政治标准。为什么在回答调查问题时显得政治无知和无私的美国人，在寻求社会互动时会使用他们的政治态度？这项研究项目旨在回答这个问题。研究人员希望展示并解释政治现象对人类追求的社会互动的影响。揭示政治在这些人际过程中的重要作用将表明，政治对人类行为的影响比政治学家目前认为的要重要得多，我们应该重新考虑我们研究和衡量政治关注度和重要性的方式。智力价值这项研究提供了一个全面的理论，描绘了从最初形成到维持或解散的相互作用二元体的发展过程。该理论解释了为什么我们应该期望互动伙伴在政治上相似，并提供了三个可检验的假设：H1社会同婚(对政治变量的被动排序)H2分类网络(对政治变量的主动排序)H3收敛(随着时间的推移，在政治变量上的相似性越来越高)为了检验这些竞争假说，研究人员将进行第一次基于实际互动动态的关于交互形成、维持和/或解散的纵向多波小组研究，将政治因素与其他已知影响这些二元的因素进行比较。这项研究将由两个分析人际吸引力的调查实验补充。政治学和心理学的学者都指出，纵向测量是解释社会互动发展的最合适的数据类型。然而，大多数着眼于这种发展的研究依赖于横断面数据，因为包含政治态度和来自所有二元伙伴互动的测量的小组数据集是不存在的。NSF的支持使得开发一个新的、纵向的数据集成为可能，这是直接测试趋同假说和对照分类假说测试社会同婚假说所必需的--而不仅仅是行为意图(比如可以通过调查实验来探索)。理解政治上相似的互动二元体是如何发展的，这对政治学家来说很重要，原因有几个。首先，发现政治上相似的二元之间的相互作用比政治上不同的二元之间的互动更持久，这要求政治学家认真重新考虑他们对政治重要性的假设。其次，如果政治上相似的人帮助他人社交，他们的社交网络影响力就会扩大。第三，与专注于特定环境(例如，邻居、学校、工作场所)的研究不同，一个人的政治互动伙伴是跨政治环境中人际影响的关键语境来源。广泛影响本研究将产生三个新的数据集，并将公开提供：(1)首次对政治互动二元体进行纵向研究，(2)两个独立的实验研究。这项二元小组研究将作为其他学者的研究设计路线图，寻求收集更多的纵向数据集，这些数据集是必不可少的，但在他们的领域中是缺失的。通过使用多方法方法，该项目将通过与面板数据相比较的一次性实验来确定检验社会互动假设的有效性。最后，这些分析将通过对导致相互作用中的政治一致性的机制提供理论和经验上的解释来推进学术知识。这一发现不仅会引起政治学家的兴趣，也会引起心理学家和社会学家的兴趣。

After 60 years of studying human behavior, political scientists have concluded that Americans are not well-informed about politics, interested in political affairs, engaged in political behavior, or constrained ideologically. Yet, scholarship on interpersonal dyads shows that these same Americans seem to use explicitly political criteria when selecting social networks and picking discussion partners. Why do Americans, who appear to be politically ignorant and disinterested when answering survey questions, use their political attitudes when pursuing social interactions?This research project is designed to answer this question. The researchers expect to show and explain that political phenomena influence the social interactions humans pursue. Uncovering an important role for politics in these interpersonal processes will show that politics is much more fundamental to human behavior than political scientists currently assume, and that we would be wise to reconsider the way we study and measure political attentiveness and importance.Intellectual MeritThis research offers a comprehensive theory that delineates the interaction dyad development process, from initial formation to maintenance or dissolution. The theory explains why we should expect interaction partners to be politically similar and offers three testable hypotheses:H1 Social homogamy (passive sorting on political variables)H2 Assortative networking (active sorting on political variables)H3 Convergence (increasing similarity on political variables over time)To test these rival hypotheses, the researchers will conduct the first longitudinal multi-wave panel study based on actual interaction dyands on interaction formation, maintenance, and/or dissolution, comparing political factors to other factors known to influence these dyads. This study will be supplemented by two survey experiments analyzing interpersonal attraction.Scholars from both political science and psychology have noted that longitudinal measures are the most appropriate type of data to explain social interaction development. However, most studies looking at such development rely on cross-sectional data because panel datasets containing measures of political attitudes and interactions from all dyad partners are nonexistent. NSF support makes it feasible to develop a novel, longitudinal dataset necessary to directly test the convergence hypothesis and to test the social homogamy hypothesis against the assortative hypothesis -- not just behavioral intentions (such as can be explored using survey experiments).Understanding how politically similar interaction dyads develop is important to political scientists for several reasons. First, discovering that interactions between politically similar dyads are more enduring (than between politically dissimilar dyads) demands that political scientists seriously reconsider their assumptions about the importance of politics. Second, if politically similar individuals help socialize others, their social network influence would spread. Third, unlike studies focusing on a specific setting (e.g., neighborhood, school, workplace), one's political interaction partners are a key contextual source of interpersonal influence across political environments.Broader ImpactsThis research will produce three novel datasets, to be made publicly available: (1) a first-of-its-kind longitudinal study of political interaction dyads, and (2) two separate experimental studies. This dyadic panel study will serve as a research design roadmap for other scholars seeking to collect additional longitudinal datasets that are essential but absent from their fields. By using a multi-method approach, this project will determine the validity of testing social interaction hypotheses with one-shot experiments compared to panel data. Finally, these analyses will advance scholarly knowledge by providing a theoretical and empirical explanation of the mechanism causing political congruency within interaction dyads.Findings would be of interest not only to political scientists but also psychologists and sociologists.