Center for Political Studies
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI
48106-1248
Voice: (734) 763-1348
Fax: (734) 764-3341
Title
Deliberative Citizenship
Co-Investigators
George E. Marcus, Michael B. MacKuen
Direct Source
NSF
Abstract
Some citizens cleave to strong partisanship, prejudging potentially new information, filtering and interpreting it in accordance with strongly held beliefs. Others are much more open-minded and deliberative by their nature. Most of us, of course, fall somewhere in between. Whether a political event, speech or news story stimulates in us a thoughtful mulling over of alternatives or triggers an impulse to rally around a particular partisan flag depends on how issues are framed and linked with familiar linguistic and pictorial symbols, particularly those that signal threat or stimulate enthusiasm, anxiety or aversion. This is the focus of our project.
We undertake an analysis of three possible responses to new political circumstances:
- seeking additional information
- seeking a balance of information from multiple perspectives
- exhibiting an openness to compromise
In our initial research we have uncovered strong evidence of the importance of the distinction between an anxious and an aversive response to new information. This leads to a rethinking of the overused and potentially misused characterization of 'negativity' in political rhetoric and advertising. Our research to date, however, is based on the study of a single issue, at one point in time and with a student population. We seek to test whether our initial results prove to be robust - over time, over a diverse population and over a range of political issues including:
- economic well being
- physical health
- physical safety and security
- threats to core values
- threats to ethnic and religious identity
- threats to national identity
This work is designed to establish a fresh line of scientific inquiry on human attention and inattention to complex political stimuli utilizing novel measurement strategies and research design.