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Attitude Attribution: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1985

Henry E. Brady  and
Paul M. Sniderman
Henry E. Brady
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Paul M. Sniderman
Affiliation:
Stanford University and Survey Research Center University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

This article shows that citizens can estimate what politically strategic groups—liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and blacks and whites—stand for on major issues. These attitude attributions follow from a simple calculus, a likability heuristic. This heuristic is rooted in people's likes and dislikes of political groups. Thanks to this affective calculus, many in the mass public are able to estimate who stands for what politically, notwithstanding shortfalls in information and information processing.

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Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 1061 - 1078
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

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