POLI 1200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Bounded Rationality, American Civil Liberties Union, Stereotype
22 May 2018
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Voter choices:
I. Rational Choice
II. Single Issue
III. Socio-Psychological Model
IV. Bounded Rationality
a. Seek out only enough information to make a good choice
i. A full information search is too difficult and not feasible
ii. A combination of rational choice and single issue, sort of
iii. Humans have limited cognitive abilities
iv. Politics is usually not of a major concern of many
b. Think of American short cuts
i. Partisan ID as a shortcut
ii. Stereotyping
iii. Think of endoresements: if ACLU endorses a candidate, we can assume the
candidate is a champion of free speech. Liberty over safety.
c. Information short cuts
i. May ties, itizes do’t hae the tie, itereste or aility to eet stadards
of rational choice full information search
ii. Use little information to infer a lot about a candidate
iii. Everyone has a candidate that matches their preferences better
1. Who is the best candidate for you?
d. Examples of information shortcuts
i. Affect referral
ii. Endorsements
iii. Familiarity
iv. Habit
v. Viability
vi. Candidate characteristics (or stereotypes)
1. Partisanship
2. Race
3. Religion
4. Gender
e. Lau and redlawsk consider
i. Candidate aspects
ii. Hoopla (the horse race). Look at aspects of the different candidates and read
NYT article that says clnton is leading trump by 15 points. Info shortcut about
the race.
iii. Issues
iv. Party
v. Endorsements
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Look at aspects of the different candidates and read. Nyt article that says clnton is leading trump by 15 points. Info shortcut about the race: issues, party, endorsements. Intro: plays huge role in voting behavior, strength of partisanship influences political behavior, positive correlation with amount of partisanship and activism. Which ones have been better for you and worse over time. Similar to rational choice as well: psychological attachment, psychologically identify with a party. Democrats have more than republicans in terms of people who identify with party. People less likely to defect in lower level races. Strong democrats more likely to vote in 2012 primaries (obama was unchallenged) than weak republicans were in a crowded field. Theory for why winning party of presidency does bad in next mid term. Presidential elections usually accompanied by high level of interest and has large amount of weak partisans.
