Citizens and Politics
Perspectives from Political Psychology

This volume brings together some of the research on citizen decision making.

James H. Kuklinski (Edited by)

9780521089425, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 November 2008

536 pages, 39 b/w illus. 33 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.78 kg

"James Kuklinski has assembled a remarkably valuable set of articles addressing the general question of citizens' political competence and political decision making.... if you are looking for the most innovative, cutting-edge articles on how citizens make sense of politics, there would be no better place to begin than this work." Perspectives on Politics

Citizens and Politics: Perspectives from Political Psychology brings together some of the research on citizen decision making. It addresses the questions of citizen political competence from different political psychology perspectives. Some of the authors in this volume look to affect and emotions to determine how people reach political judgements, others to human cognition and reasoning. Still others focus on perceptions or basic political attitudes such as political ideology. Several demonstrate the impact of values on policy preferences. The collection features chapters from some of the most talented political scientists in the field.

Prologue
1. Political psychology and the study of citizens and politics James Kuklinski
Part I. Affect and Emotion: Section introduction James Kuklinski
2. The role of affect in symbolic politics David O. Sears
3. Emotions and politics: the dynamic functions of emotionality George E. Marcus and Michael B. MacKuen
4. Cognitive neuroscience, emotion, and leadership Roger D. Masters
5. Commentary: emotion as virtue and vice Gerald L. Clore and Linda M. Isbell
Part II. Political Cognition: Section introduction James Kuklinski
6. An experimental study of information search, memory, and decision making during a political campaign Richard R. Lau and David P. Redlawsk
7. Political accounts and attribution processes Kathleen M. McGraw
8. The motivated construction of political judgments Charles S. Taber, Jill Glathar and Milton Lodge
9. Commentary: on the dynamic and goal-oriented nature of (candidate) evaluations Sharon Shavitt and Michelle R. Nelson
Part III. Political Attitudes and Perceptions: Section introduction James Kuklinski
10. Public opinion and democratic politics: the problem of nonattitudes and the social construction of political judgment Paul M. Sniderman, Phillip E. Tetlock and Laurel Elms
11. Implications of a latitude-theory model of citizen attitudes for political campaigning, debate, and representation Gregory Andrade Diamond
12. Where you stand depends on what you see: connections among values, perceptions of fact, and political prescriptions Jennifer L. Hochschild
13. Commentary: the meaning of 'attitude' in representative democracies James H. Kuklinski and Jennifer Jerit
Part IV. Political Values: Section introduction James Kuklinski
14. Social welfare attitudes and the humanitarian sensibility Stanley Feldman and Marco Steenbergen
15. American individualism reconsidered Gregory B. Markus
16. Political values judgments Laura Stoker
Commentary: the study of values Kenneth Rasinski
Commentary: the value of politics Melissa A. Orlie.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Psychology [JM]