Abstract
If the American citizen is capable of constructing reliable political judgments without engaging in extensive cognitive deliberation, then criticism that public opinion is largely vacuous in character may overstate the implications of a politically inattentive citizenry. Heuristic processing, reliance on simple rules of judgment, provides a cognitive mechanism that may enable citizens to advance informed yet efficient issue appraisals. More specifically, application of heuristic processing to source cues—references to prominent political leaders—can allow individuals to extend evaluations of those leaders to the policies and issues with which they are associated. In this paper, discussion of heuristic principles of judgment facilitates specification of the expected relationship between source cues and two component processes of individual-level public opinion: opinion holding and opinion direction. Separate quasi-experimental analyses yield evidence consistently supportive of the heuristic perspective.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Axsom, Danny, Yates, Suzanne, and Chaiken, Shelly (1987). Audience response as a heuristic cue in persuasion.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53: 30–40.
Berelson, Bernard, Lazarsfeld, Paul and McPhee, William (1954).Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Brady, Henry E., and Sniderman, Paul M. (1985). Attitude attribution: A group basis for political reasoning.American Political Science Review 79: 1061–1078.
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E. (1960).The American Voter. New York: Wiley.
Carmines, Edward G., and Kuklinski, James H. (1990). Incentives, opportunities, and the logic of public opinion in American political representation. In John A. Ferejohn and James H. Kuklinski (eds.),Information and Democratic Processes. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press.
Chaiken, Shelly (1987). The heuristic model of persuasion. In Mark P. Zanna, James M. Olson, and C. Peter Herman (eds.),Social Influence: The Ontario Symposium Vol. 5. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Chaiken, Shelly (1980). Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus messages cues in persuasion.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39: 752–766.
Chaiken, Shelly, and Stangor, Charles (1987). Attitudes and attitude change.Annual Review of Psychology 38: 575–630.
Chaiken, Shelly, Liberman, Akiva, and Eagly, Alice H. (1989). Heuristic and systematic processing within and beyond the persuasion context. In James S. Uleman and John A. Bargh (eds.),Unintended Thought: Limits of Awareness, Intention, and Control. New York: Guilford.
Converse, Philip E. (1970). Attitudes and non-attitudes: Continuation of a dialogue. In Edward R. Tufte (ed.),The Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Converse, Philip E. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In David Apter (ed.),Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press.
Downs, Anthony (1957).An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Dubois, Philip L. (1984). Voting cues in nonpartisan trial court elections: A multivariate assessment.Law & Society Review 18: 397–436.
Dubois, Philip L. (1980). Public participation in trial court elections.Law and Policy 2: 133–160.
Fiske, Susan T., and Taylor, Shelley E. (1984).Social Cognition. New York: Random House.
Hurwitz, Jon, and Peffley, Mark (1990). Public images of the Soviet Union: The impact of foreign policy attitudes.Journal of Politics 52: 2–28.
Hurwitz, Jon, and Peffley, Mark (1987). How are foreign policy attitudes structured?: A hierarchical model.American Political Science Review 81: 1099–1120.
Johnson, Charles A., Schaefer, Roger C., and McKnight, R. Neal (1978). The salience of judicial candidates and elections.Social Science Quarterly 59: 371–378.
Kahneman, Daniel, Slovic Paul, and Tversky, Amos (eds.) (1982).Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kinder, Donald R. (1983). Diversity and complexity in American public opinion. In Ada W. Finifter (ed.),Political Science: The State of the Discipline. Washington: The American Political Science Association.
Kinder, Donald R., and Sears, David O. (1983). Public opinion and political action. In Gardner Lindzey and Elliot Aronson (eds.),The Handbook of Social Psychology (third edition). Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Kuklinski, James H., Metlay, Daniel S., and Kay, W. D. (1982). Citizen knowledge and choices on the complex issue of nuclear energy.American Journal of Political Science 26: 615–42.
Kuklinski, James H., Riggle, Ellen, Ottati, Victor, Schwarz, Norbert, and Wyer, Robert S., Jr. 1991. The cognitive and affective bases of political tolerance judgments.American Journal of Political Science 35: 1–27.
Lovrich, Nicholas P., Jr., and Sheldon, Charles H. (1983). Voters in contested, nonpartisan judicial elections: A responsible electorate or a problematic public?Western Political Quarterly 36: 241–256.
Mondak, Jeffery J. (1993). Source cues and policy approval: The cognitive dynamics of public support for the Reagan agenda.American Journal of Political Science, 186–212.
Neuman, W. Russell (1986).The Paradox of Mass Politics: Knowledge and Opinion in the American Electorate. Cambridge, Mass.: The Harvard University Press.
Ottati, V., Fishbein, M., and Middlestadt, S. E. (1988). Determinants of voters' beliefs about the candidates' stands on the issues: The role of evaluative bias heuristics and the candidates' expressed message.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55: 517–529.
Ottati, Victor C. (1990). Determinants of political judgments: The joint influence of normative and heuristic rules of inference.Political Behavior 12: 159–179.
Ottati, Victor C., and Wyer, Robert S., Jr. (1990). The cognitive mediators of political choice: Toward a comprehensive model of political information processing. In John A. Ferejohn and James H. Kuklinski, (eds.),Information and Democratic Processes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y. (1992).The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Peffley, Mark, and Hurwitz, Jon (1985). A hierarchical model of attitude constraint.American Journal of Political Science 29: 871–890.
Petty, Richard E., and Cacioppo, John T. (1986).Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Popkin, Samuel L. (1991). The reasoning voter: Communication and persuasion in presidential campaigns, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Rahn, Wendy M. (1989). The role of partisan stereotypes in information processing about political candidates. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta.
Riggle, Ellen D. (1992). Cognitive strategies and candidate evaluations.American Politics Quarterly 20: 227–246.
Riggle, Ellen D., Ottati, Victor C., Wyer, Robert S., Kuklinski, James, and Schwarz, Norbert (1992). Bases of Political Judgments: The Role of Stereotypic and Nonstereotypic Information.Political Behavior 14: 67–87.
Shapiro, Robert Y., Young, John T., Patterson, Kelly D., Blumenfeld, Jill E., Cifu, Doublas A., Offenhartz, Sara M., and Tsekerides, Ted E. (1991). Media influences on support for presidential candidates in primary elections: Theory, method, and evidence.International Journal of Public Opinion Research 3: 340–365.
Sigelman, Lee, and Yanarella, Ernest J. (1986). Public information on public information: A multivariate analysis.Social Science Quarterly 67: 402–410.
Simon, Herbert A. (1957).Models of Man. New York: Wiley.
Smith, Eric R. A. N., and Squire, Peverill (1990). The effects of prestige names in question wording.Public Opinion Quarterly 54: 97–116.
Sniderman, Paul M., Brody, Richard A., and Tetlock Philip E. (1991).Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Squire, Peverill, and Smith, Eric R. A. N. (1988). The effect of partisan information on voters in nonpartisan elections.Journal of Politics 50: 169–179.
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel (1982). Judgments of and by representativeness. InJudgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases.Science 185: 1124–1131.
Wilson, Timothy D., and Schooler, Jonathan W. (1991). Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60: 181–192.
Yeric, Jerry L., and Todd, John R. (1989).Public Opinion: The Visible Politics (second edition), Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mondak, J.J. Public opinion and heuristic processing of source cues. Polit Behav 15, 167–192 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993852
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993852