The Cognitive and Affective Determinants of Political Judgments

Recent research in political psychology has emphasized the unique role of beliefs and episodic emotions as determinants of attitude toward a political candidate. A conceptual distinction between "beliefs" and "emotions" has been argued on the basis of the finding that evaluative consistency mechanisms appear to be more pronounced in beliefs than in emotions. The unique role of beliefs and emotions as determinants of attitude has been argued on the basis of the finding that beliefs and emotions operate as unique predictors of attitude. The results of this dissertation suggest that these findings only occur when employing a traditional survey approach in which a common set of items is administered to all respondents. When examining beliefs and emotions that are salient for each particular individual respondent: (1) there was no indication that beliefs are more strongly influenced by evaluative consistency mechanisms than are emotions, (2) respondents were quite capable of generating cognitive explanations for their emotional responses, and (3) these cognitive explanations fully accounted for the role of emotions as predictors of attitude. On the basis of these findings, it is concluded that an individual's beliefs are not more strongly influenced by evaluative consistency mechanisms than are an individual's emotions. And more importantly, it is possible to locate a cognitive basis of emotion that fully accounts for the relation between episodic emotions and attitude toward the candidate.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Ottati, Victor C.

• Psychology, Social
• Political Science, General

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8908795

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/69719