Do Confident People Behave Differently?

Abstract

This chapter reports analyses drawn from the 2006 American National Election Studies Pilot Study. It focuses on the extent to which defensive confidence influences partisan defection and affects other political behaviors. In addition, also considers several interrelated issues: whether or not the levels of defensive confidence differ across demographic and ethnic groups; what we can learn about citizens' attention to politics and government affairs and to the news and if these forms of attention are related to defensive confidence and partisan defection; and if people with higher levels of defensive confidence are more likely to participate in politics than people with lower levels of defensive confidence. The chapter first provides an overview of defensive confidence and its development in the literature. It then presents an analysis of the influence of defensive confidence on partisan defection, attention to government and politics, attention to the news, and political participation.