Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Legislators' Perceptions and Representation in Congress

二十多年前，Fenno（1978）呼吁人们关注他所谓的“研究代表-选区关系的学生所面临的关键问题……”感知的问题。”更具体地说，芬诺指出了像立法者一样看待选民的重要性。换句话说，“当当选代表看到一个选区时，他或她看到了什么。”(Fenno 1978)。本博士论文研究项目解决了这个问题，并运用认知心理学和社会心理学的理论来发展一个更完整的国会代表理论。该项目集中于立法者对其选民的概念如何受到可得性启发的约束（Tversky和Kahneman 1974）。虽然政治学家经常在民意研究中引用心理学理论，但这些理论很少在政治精英的背景下进行检验。代表的部分任务要求立法者决定该地区谁对某一特定问题感兴趣。该学生认为，可得性启发法为立法者对其所在地区的看法提供了重要的见解。在对其选区的利益作出判断时，立法者并不使用所有相关信息，而是依赖于相关信息的一个子集。那些更容易获得的利益（无论是有组织的还是无组织的）更有可能被包括在立法者对特定问题的地区利益的看法中。在本文中，学生考察了选择性知觉，并认为这个问题的答案需要考虑可得性启发式。研究的中心问题是如何解释立法者之间的感知差异？该学生提出，这个问题的任何答案都必须考虑到政治科学文献中的许多假设，并结合认知心理学的理论。正是后一个问题构成了本项目的主要经验焦点。该学生通过关注美国众议院现任议员及其立法工作人员，来解决立法者认为谁是某一特定问题上感兴趣的选民的一部分的问题。由于研究是针对具体问题的，他将重点放在两个问题领域中的两个政策上：患者权利法案和医疗保险改革（健康政策），破产改革和互联网税收暂停（金融服务政策）。她通过与立法人员和立法者的面对面访谈来回答立法者如何看待他们的选民的问题。立法人员对其所在地区谁对某一特定问题感兴趣的看法的因变量是通过与立法人员和立法人员的访谈中包含的两种工具来衡量的。访谈和由经济、政治和人口变量组成的数据集相结合，既可以进行描述性和定性分析，也可以进行更传统的统计分析。

Over twenty years ago, Fenno (1978) called attention to what he called the "key problem facing students of the representative-constituency relationship.. .the problem of perception." More specifically, Fenno noted the importance of viewing the constituency as the legislator does. In other words, "what does an elected representative see when he or she sees a constituency." (Fenno 1978). This Doctoral Dissertation Research project addresses this question and employs theories from cognitive and social psychology to develop a more complete theory of congressional representation. The project centers on the ways in which legislators' conceptions of their constituents are constrained by the availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman 1974). While political scientists have frequently invoked psychological theories in the study of public opinion, such theories have rarely been examined in the context of political elites. Part of the task of representation requires legislators to decide who in the district is interested in a given issue. The student argues that the availability heuristic offers important insight into legislators' perceptions of their districts. When making judgments about the interests of their district, legislators do not use all the relevant information, but rather rely on a subset of relevant information. Those interests (whether organized or unorganized) that are more easily accessible are more likely to be included in the legislator's perception of the district's interests on a given issue. In this dissertation the student examines selective perception and argues that the answer to this question requires the consideration of the availability heuristic. The central question investigated is what explains perceptual variations across legislators? The student offers that any answer to this question must take into account numerous hypotheses from the political science literature in combination with theories from cognitive psychology. It is this latter question that constitutes the majority of the empirical focus of this project.The student approaches the question of who legislators perceive as being part of the interested constituency on a given issue by focusing on current members of the U.S. House of Representatives and their legislative staff. Since the research is issue-specific, he focuses on two policies within each of two issue areas: the Patients' Bill of Rights and Medicare reform (health policy), and bankruptcy reform and the Internet tax moratorium (financial services policy). She uses in-person interviews with legislative staff and legislators to answer the question of how legislators see their constituents. The dependent variable of legislators' perceptions of who in their district is interested in a given issue is measured by two instruments included in the interviews with legislative staff and legislators. The combination of interviews and a dataset comprised of economic, political, and demographic variables allows both descriptive and qualitative analysis as well as a more conventional statistical analysis.