Parties are always right: the effects of party cues and policy information on attitudes towards EU issues

Pannico, Roberto

doi:10.1080/01402382.2019.1653658

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But, as described in the introduction of this paper, a high score is likely to co-vary with additional variables, like prior exposure to the party cue (before the study), which would similarly diminish high-scorers' reliance on the party cue (during the study). This makes it difficult to interpret the simple finding that political sophistication correlates with diminished reliance on party cues, as reported by numerous studies (Anduiza, Gallego, and Muñoz 2013;Barber and Pope 2019;Boudreau and MacKenzie 2014;Kam 2005;Mondak 1993;Pannico 2020). By randomizing exposure to substantive policy information, and observing a corresponding attenuation of party cue influence, our results clarify that the aforementioned political sophistication findings may indeed be driven by greater awareness of policy-relevant information-and not simply by the higher likelihood of prior exposure to the party cue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Taken together, the findings from this body of work are relatively mixed with respect to the interactions predicted by the heuristic theory. Some studies estimate that higher values of the covariates are associated with stronger party cue influence, inconsistent with the theory (Bakker and Lelkes 2018; Bakker, Lelkes, and Malka 2020; Slothuus and de Vreese 2010; Vössing 2020); other studies estimate that higher values of the covariates are associated with weaker influence, consistent with the theory (Anduiza, Gallego, and Muñoz 2013;Barber and Pope 2019;Boudreau and MacKenzie 2014;Kam 2005;Mondak 1993;Pannico 2020); while still other studies find little evidence of a reliable moderating relationship in one direction or the other (Bullock 2011;Ehret, Van Boven, and Sherman 2018;Gilens and Murakawa 2002;Kam 2005;Mérola and Hitt 2016;Petersen et al 2013;Slothuus 2010;Tappin 2020).…”

Section: Tests Using Covariate Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Estimating the causal effects of cognitive effort and policy information on party cue influence

Tappin¹

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Why do party cues influence public opinion? A long-standing and influential theory holds that party cues function as heuristics, stand-ins for the lack of policy information and motivation to engage in effortful thinking that characterizes the average person. A key prediction follows that the influence of party cues would diminish if only people were to possess more information about policy, a greater propensity for effortful thinking, or both. This prediction has escaped decisive empirical testing to date, leaving in its wake a string of mixed results. Here, we characterize the challenges that limit previous tests, and we report on two large, novel experiments designed to overcome these challenges. Our experiments indicate that exposure to substantive policy information causally attenuates the influence of party cues, but engagement in effortful thinking per se does not. Our results provide new evidence, and have diverse implications, for the heuristic theory of party cue influence.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Tests Using Covariate Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the causal effects of cognitive effort and policy information on party cue influence

Tappin¹

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…the majority effect Moussaïd et al, 2013). When access to other people's private preferences is limited, a majority is vocal in their public preferences, or elites signal what should be publicly endorsed (Barber & Pope, 2019;Pannico, 2020;Tappin, 2020), private preferences may be discounted for widely expressed or more accessible public preferences that are interpreted as being widely supported or trusted. Conforming for information thus gives rise to PF and a perpetuation of the status quo in which available, majority preferences are accepted as being the most popular.…”

Section: Conforming For Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference Falsification: How Social Conformity as an Interdependent, Recursive, and Multilevel Process Corrupts Public Knowledge

Elder¹,

Derreumaux²,

Hughes³

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Throughout life, people sometimes lie to curry favor or mitigate disharmony with others, a tendency that may be exacerbated under moments of elevated tension. This phenomenon is captured by the economic theoretical framework of Preference Falsification, which describes why people misrepresent their beliefs in the face of social pressures, and how misrepresentation accumulates to broader misunderstandings that can fuel political polarization. We describe why the current political climate may foster motivations to misrepresent beliefs, as individuals are increasingly siloed into like-minded communities with strong pressures to conform to group norms. Next, we adopt a psychological lens to understand and integrate three motivations that underlie individual misrepresentation – relating to an individual’s intrinsic preference, their reputational concern, and their desire for expression – and describe how individual acts of misrepresentation can propagate across social connections to establish misrepresented beliefs as public consensus. Finally, we outline inroads for examining Preference Falsification using psychological methods that may be uniquely suited to elucidate the different social dynamics and issues that elicit this behavior, with the goal of spurring future research. Ultimately, we argue that fostering a more ideologically pluralistic and socially interconnected society may offer one route to reducing misrepresentation and collective misunderstanding, and thereby attenuate polarization and intergroup antipathy.

show abstract

“…The identity approach, for example, considers that support for the EU is a function of the cultural threat that the integration process represents for the citizens of member states (McLaren, 2002). From a different perspective, the cue-taking approach contends that EU support is primarily based on the cues citizens receive from actors like political parties or the media (Pannico, 2020). While the identity and cue-taking perspectives provide relevant insights on the foundations of public support for the EU, in this article, we focus on two approaches that stress the utilitarian nature of public support: the economic approach and the reference approach.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of EU institutional advertising on public support for European integration

Hernández

Pannico

2020

European Union Politics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Utilitarian theories propose that support for the EU is based on an instrumental calculus about the costs and benefits of European integration. Drawing on these theories, we analyze whether and how ads produced by European institutions affect public support for the EU. Our findings, based on a panel survey experiment, indicate that these ads increase support for the EU, and that ads emphasizing the policy benefits of European integration are more effective than ads emphasizing its reduced costs. However, these positive effects are short-lived, since they had disappeared one year after citizens were initially exposed to the ads. In a context of increasing negativity towards the EU, these findings, based on realistic treatments, have relevant theoretical and policy implications.

show abstract

Parties are always right: the effects of party cues and policy information on attitudes towards EU issues

Cited by 24 publications

References 54 publications

Estimating the causal effects of cognitive effort and policy information on party cue influence

Estimating the causal effects of cognitive effort and policy information on party cue influence

Preference Falsification: How Social Conformity as an Interdependent, Recursive, and Multilevel Process Corrupts Public Knowledge

The impact of EU institutional advertising on public support for European integration

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About