The Effects of Need for Cognition and Need for Affect on Partisan Evaluations

Abstract

The voting behavior literature has advanced two prominent theoretical models of partisanship: the social psychological and rational models. Implicit to both stylized models is the assumption that all partisans process information similarly. Yet, growing research in psychology suggests that individuals possess different motivations when evaluating information. We propose that the applicability of the stylized models of partisanship is conditioned on individuals' need for cognition (NFC) and need for affect (NFA), with the social psychological model being most applicable to individuals who have a high NFA and the rational model most applicable to those with a high NFC. To test this proposition, we fielded a survey in which respondents who identified with the two major political parties in the United States (Democrat or Republican) were randomly assigned factual information that depicted either their party or their opposing party in a negative light. Respondents were then asked to assess the actions of that party and subsequently evaluate both political parties. We find evidence that is generally consistent with the proposition that the stylized models of partisanship are conditionally dependent on the extent to which individuals possess a need to engage in effortful thinking or a need to seek out emotions.

Partisanship and Preference Formation: Competing Motivations, Elite Polarization, and Issue Importance

“…Although tested in different ways, partisan motivated reasoning is often evident in analyses of how people process and respond to information in the presence or absence of party endorsements (Bolsen et al 2014;Druckman et al 2013). 2 While much attention is given to individual-level variables that condition the effects of motivations (Arceneaux and Wielen 2013;Lavine et al 2012;Taber and Lodge 2006;Taber et al 2009), research also highlights the moderating role of political contexts. It has been argued that a salient feature of the contemporary American political landscape-elite partisan polarization-alters the influence of partisanship in preference formation in the mass public in at least two ways.…”

Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity

“…We draw on social identity theory to develop the expressive model and conduct four studies to compare it to an instrumental explanation of campaign involvement. This has generated two competing views of partisanship (Arceneaux and Vander Wielen 2013;Lupu 2013). A series of experiments underscore the power of partisan identity to generate action-oriented emotions that drive campaign activity.…”

“…Both models can claim empirical support, and there is growing evidence that instrumental and expressive accounts of partisanship may explain vote choice and public opinion at different times, under differing conditions, and among distinct segments of the electorate (Arceneaux and Vander Wielen 2013;Bullock 2011;Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen 2012). Both models can claim empirical support, and there is growing evidence that instrumental and expressive accounts of partisanship may explain vote choice and public opinion at different times, under differing conditions, and among distinct segments of the electorate (Arceneaux and Vander Wielen 2013;Bullock 2011;Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen 2012).…”

Survey Experiments on Candidate Religiosity, Political Attitudes, and Vote Choice

“…Rather than producing the standard statistical significance level of .05 for the probability of a type I error, concluding that two values are statistically different only when their 95 percent confidence intervals do not overlap produces a probability of type I error of approximately .006. These authors recommend using 83.5 percent confidence intervals to achieve type I error rates of 5 percent and recent work in political science has followed their advice (Arceneaux and Vander Wielen ; Lindstadt and Vander Wielen ). We also follow this advice, but use slightly more conservative 85 percent confidence intervals.…”