An Anomaly in Political Perception

This article uses two theories of political perception, displacement theory and political cue-theory, to analyze the abortion issue. Although both theories are supported, neither can account for the anomaly of collective misperception of Ted Kennedy's position. Experimentally manipulating the salience of politics and religion affected perception of Kennedy's position in a way that supported an extended version of political cue theory. Donald Granberg is Professor of Sociology and Research Associate at the Center for Research in Social Behavior, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211. The author thanks Randi Mach, John Murphy, Ross DePugh, Robert Arkin, Patricia Shanks, and Diane Chappell for their advice and assistance. The data for the Center for Political Studies 1980 National Election Study were obtained through the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. The author is solely responsible for analyses and interpretation. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol 49 504-516 C) by the American Association for Public Opinion Research Published by Elsevier Science Publishing Co, Inc. 0033-362X/85/0049-504/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.45 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 06:00:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms AN ANOMALY IN POLITICAL PERCEPTION 505 with a disliked candidate. The expectation is that people engage in assimilation when attributing a position to a liked candidate, i.e., distort the candidate's position in the direction of their own attitude. When people who like the same candidate but hold different attitudes on an issue are compared, there tends to be a strong positive function between their own attitudinal position and the position attributed to the candidate on the same scale. Assuming the candidate's position to be constant, this positive function is supportive of the assimilation hypothesis. Similarly, the same theory predicted that people would displace away from their own attitude, i.e., contrast, when attributing a position to a disliked candidate. A negative function between people's attitudes and their perceptions of a candidate's position, among people who dislike the candidate but who take different positions themselves on the issue, would be evidence of contrast (Granberg and Brent, 1974; Heider, 1958; Sherif and Hovland, 1961). Relevant data pertaining to this theory have been analyzed in relation to several U.S. presidential elections, as well as parliamentary elections in Sweden. The tendency of people to assimilate when attributing a position to a preferred candidate or party has been robust. Contrast effects, however, have been weaker, but have occurred in relation to incumbent candidates (Berelson et al., 1954; Brent and Granberg, 1982; Granberg, 1983, 1985a; Kinder, 1978; King, 1978; Page and Brody, 1972; Shaffer, 1981; Sherrod, 1972). Although the tendency for assimilation of a preferred candidate to be stronger than contrast of a nonpreferred candidate was not anticipated, it has a close laboratory analog. In experiments, people find agreement with a liked other far more pleasant than disagreement with a disliked other, even though on logical grounds they are equally well balanced (Insko et al., 1974; Price et al., 1966). Political cue theory asserts that people use relevant cues that are available in estimating a candidate's position on an issue. Thus, when people are asked to place a particular candidate on an issue and when they are uncertain, they will use other information which they know as a basis for drawing an inference. Cues that would normally be relevant would include the candidate's party affiliation and that party's perceived position, the candidate's general ideological reputation, and the candidate's position on other issues. In recent election studies, people were asked to place the political parties, as well as the candidates, on several issue scales. Analyses have shown a strong positive correlation between where people place a party on an issue scale and where they place that party's nominee, thus supporting political cue theory. Moreover, when the person's perception of the party's position and the person's own attitude are used to jointly predict the person's perception of a preferred candidate, the party cue variable This content downloaded from 157.55.39.45 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 06:00:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms