Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While extensive research exists on how voters use cues and heuristics, relatively little work exists on how candidates create cues to shape voter opinion. This paper develops a general theory of cue-giving, in which candidates use cues to make their appeals more salient to voters who are disengaged and distracted by many other media messages. The paper shows that House candidates provide more cues in their television advertising when they face scarce campaign resources, crowded communication environments, and politically unsophisticated electorates---precisely the conditions in which voters need cues the most. Thus candidates and voters alike use cues to communicate in a media environment that demands brevity and salience.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: It is widely known that citizens use cues as substitutes for knowledge about politics. Given the many cues that exist in the real world, it is important to study the effects of cues when there is more than one available to citizens. Thus, I conduct laboratory experiments in which I provide subjects with several different cues, and I assess whether multiple cues help subjects to improve their decisions, above and beyond the improvements they achieve when only one of these cues is present. My results show that two cues are not necessarily better than one. That is, when one cue enables subjects to achieve large improvements in their decisions, the presence of a second cue does not allow subjects to improve their decisions further. However, the addition of a second cue can induce further improvements in subjects’ decisions, even when that cue, by itself, does not improve subjects’ decisions and even when it is paired with another cue that, by itself, also does not improve subjects’ decisions. Thus, even when two cues do not improve subjects’ decisions when presented separately, they significantly improve subjects’ decisions when they are presented together.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: It is widely known that citizens use cues as substitutes for detailed knowledge about politics. Although many cues exist in the real world, relatively few scholars have studied whether citizens can improve their decisions when they are exposed to multiple cues that send conflicting signals about which choice they should make. Thus, I conduct laboratory experiments in which I manipulate whether subjects are exposed to zero cues, one cue, or two conflicting cues before they make their decisions. My results suggest that a version of Gresham’s Law may operate in the context of cue-taking. That is, when subjects are exposed to one cue that suggests the correct choice, they are able to improve their decisions. However, when that same cue is presented together with a cue that suggests the incorrect choice, subjects make significantly worse decisions. This result occurs because subjects who are exposed to two conflicting cues are more likely to base their decisions upon the cue that suggests the incorrect choice or to not make a decision at all.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: While extensive research exists on how voters use cues and heuristics, relatively little work exists on how candidates create cues to shape voter opinion. This paper develops a general theory of cue-giving, in which candidates use cues to make their appeals more salient to voters who are disengaged from politics and distracted by many other media messages. The paper shows that House candidates provide more cues in their television advertising when they face scarce campaign resources, crowded communication environments, and politically unsophisticated electorates---precisely the conditions in which voters need cues the most.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Media portrayals of presidential performance as either “successful” or “inadequate” can temporarily unite mass opinion, driving poll-tested public approval up or down. The leading interpreter of this variance sees it as evidence that the American people prize “results” above all other measures of the quality of presidential performance (Brody, 1991). But when people are invited to explain their standards they report more diverse expectations than this interpretation implies.
I draw on existing survey and other research plus original interview data to show that citizens frequently base their appraisals not only on results but also on such performance cues as presidential acts and traits. What is more, my 116 depth-interviews suggest that people differ-- not just in the particular cues they emphasize but also in the personal uses they make of their cues.
To flesh out these differences I construct a typology supported by inferential evidence from a variety of sources that I illustrate with the interviews. Most people fit the category I call “Delegators,” who look to cues for reassurance that they can adequately monitor the president without gathering much information. Less numerous are those labeled “Instrumentals.” They seek proof of the chief executive’s ability to get results and use their cues as predictors of results. Third are “Partisans, who expect fealty to ideological orthodoxy. Last is a group called “Indifferents” They lack the civic interest needed to express coherent grounds for assessing presidents.
The differences matter because their probable distribution across the electorate has important implications for the ability of the American people as a whole to hold their presidents to meaningful account.