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

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，以及这种背景对评估政治结果的重要性。考虑的核心问题是人们如何以及何时学习政治。具体地说，该项目将个人层面的动机理论与植根于政治背景的解释相结合，以探索信息环境如何增强或规避政治兴趣在促进政治学习中的影响。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注意力和信息水平的环境开始--一场竞争性的竞选活动。根据一组实验和调查数据，我们考虑了两个核心问题。首先，即使缺乏关注时事的动机，政治环境也能促进政治学习吗？如果背景确实促进了政治知识的获得，那么这种情况是通过什么机制发生的？接下来，我们探讨了被动学习和主动学习的后果，考虑到人们在被动地从环境中学习时，是否获得了不同类型的信息，并依赖于不同类型的决策标准。为了更深入地研究语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，信息环境的性质以及政治关注的动机都有所不同。在追踪信息搜索的模式以及对兴趣和信息收益的后测评估中，这些实验测试了背景和动机如何相互作用，影响政治学习的数量和种类。调查数据为这些问题提供了第二次考验。由于总统候选人依赖选举人团战略，各州总统竞选活动的强度各不相同。这些不同的竞选背景对各州竞选注意力和学习模式的影响进行了探索，考虑了基于个人因素的解释，如教育，以及背景因素，如竞选广告量、总统电视覆盖率和州内的党派分歧。还考虑了这些背景差异的后果，以及一场著名的总统竞选活动的背景是否会影响对其他同时进行的竞选活动的评估。通过考虑个人层面的国会投票选择的预测因素如何随着背景的不同而变化来调查这一点，以确定当总统竞选活动更加突出时，对总统的评价和其他国家因素是否是更重要的评估标准。这项研究通过研究不同类型的政治学习的一些后果，特别是人们主动或被动获得的信息，以及这对个人和政治观察者的影响，具有广泛的社会影响。

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.