2008 knowledge and attitudes chapter.pdf

[15:07 2/8/2007 4984-donsbach-ch12.tex] Paper: a4 Job No: 4984 Donsbach: Public Opinion Research (SAGE Handbook) Page: 123 123–140

PART II

Theories of Public OpinionFormation and Change


Section 1

Formation of Opinion


12Knowledge and Attitudes

P e n n y S . V i s s e r , A l l y s o n H o l b r o o k a n dJ o n A . K r o s n i c k

The simple notion that citizens elect repre-sentatives who implement policies with whichthey agree is central to democratic theory. Inthis way, all citizens can pursue their owninterests as well as the interests of the commongood in an orderly and efficient way. Accord-ing to many political theorists, this simpleprocess enables democratic governments tomaintain stability and legitimacy.

On closer inspection, however, this processis far from simple. It depends critically ona number of fairly demanding steps. It firstrequires that at least a substantial majorityof citizens carefully attend to political eventson the local, state, and national stages.Further, citizens must consolidate the constantstream of political information provided bythe news media, advocacy groups, and otherindividuals within the social environment, andthey must store this information in memoryfor later use. From this elaborate and diverseset of stored information, citizens must deriveattitudes on salient issues of the day that reflecttheir interests and other core predispositions.Citizens must then discriminate among vari-ous candidates for political office, identifying

those who hold issue positions closest to theirown, and they must cast ballots in support ofthose candidates during elections. This canbe difficult, because candidates often do notclearly and consistently state their positionson issues (Page, 1978), and the media donot make special efforts to communicatecandidates’ positions to the public (Graber,1980; Patterson, 1980; Patterson & McClure,1976). Finally, citizens must monitor theactions of their elected officials, holdingthem accountable for pursuing the appropriatepolicies and in other ways serving the citizens’goals and interests.

All of this suggests that the functioningof a healthy democracy requires an engagedand informed citizenry whose attitudes andpreferences reflect careful consideration ofa broad set of political information. In thischapter, we consider the extent to whichordinary citizens live up to this ideal. Wealso consider the antecedents of and barriersto the acquisition of political knowledge andtrace the various consequences of knowl-edge for political attitudes, judgments, andbehavior.


128 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH

HOW KNOWLEDGEABLE?

So how much do ordinary citizens know aboutpolitical matters? Several decades of researchprovide a resounding answer: not much at all.Looking first at young adults, research on civiceducation within the US suggests that mostyoung people enter adulthood with a rathertenuous grasp on basic features of the politicalsystem. In fact, a recent survey administeredby the US Department of Education (Lutkus,Weiss, Campbell, Mazzeo, & Lazer, 1999)revealed that by the time they reach twelfthgrade, only about a quarter of US studentsperformed at or above the level of expectedproficiency in civic knowledge. And fully35% of high school seniors tested belowthe most basic level, reflecting virtually noknowledge about the political system.

Research with representative samples ofUS adults suggests that these early deficitsoften persist. In one especially comprehensiveinvestigation, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996)analyzed over 2000 political knowledgequestions posed to representative samples ofAmerican adults, covering basic features ofpolitical institutions and processes, salientpolicy domains, and prominent political lead-ers. They found that most Americans were atbest moderately informed about political mat-ters, and many were exceedingly uninformed.For example, only 44% of Americans couldname one of the three branches of government.When presented with the three branches, lessthan 60% could say which one determines theconstitutionality of a law. Just over 30% ofAmerican adults could provide even the mostrudimentary definition of affirmative action,and less than 60% knew that Roe v. Wadeinvolved the issue of abortion rights. Overall,Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) found thatonly 41% of Americans knew the answersto 50% or more of the political knowledgequestions, and only 13% were able to answer75% of the questions. Findings like thesehave led to much hand-wringing across thesocial sciences, as political scientists andothers lament “the breadth and depth of citizenignorance” (Lupia & McCubbins, 1998, p. 1).These alarmingly low levels of political

knowledge have typically been viewed as aserious threat to the functioning of democracy.

Interpreting these findings

Recently, however, scholars have begun toquestion the degree to which these observedlow levels of political knowledge do infact repudiate the competence of ordinarycitizens to participate in the democraticprocess. Some scholars have pointed out,for example, that it is not clear preciselywhat knowledge is necessary for peopleto be effective democratic citizens, or ifthe questions posed to survey respondentsmeasure that knowledge (Krosnick, 1998;Kuklinski & Quirk, 2001; Lupia, in press). Noeffort has been made to define the universe ofnecessary knowledge or to sample from sucha universe in any systematic way (Krosnick,1998). In fact, only recently have scholarsbegun to articulate the conceptual foundationsof citizen competence, explicitly delineatingthe specific tasks that confront citizens, thecriteria by which their performance of thesetasks should be evaluated, the observableindicators of the criteria, and the standardsagainst which the indicators should be eval-uated (Kuklinski & Quirk, 2001). Becausesuch systematic analysis has been absent, itis difficult to know what to conclude fromresponses to the apparently arbitrary set ofknowledge items that have been posed tosurvey respondents over the years.

Others have challenged the way thatpolitical knowledge is assessed, suggestingthat the “pop quiz” format of the typicaltelephone survey is misleading regarding theprocess by which citizens wield politicalinformation in consequential judgments anddecisions (Prior & Lupia, 2005). They suggestthat, as in most domains in life, the criticalelement is not the number of discrete bits ofinformation stored in memory and availablefor instantaneous retrieval, but rather theability and motivation to access and utilizerelevant pieces of information when the taskat hands calls for it. Thus, the fact thatmost people do not have an encyclopedicset of political facts at their fingertips does


KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES 129

not mean that the political judgments anddecisions that they make are groundless.When faced with a consequential judgment ordecision, people may well seek out and thenmake use of relevant information. Telephonesurveys that pose unexpected knowledgequestions provide respondents with neitherthe motivation nor the opportunity to doso, and thus offer a distorted portrait ofthe role of political information in citizens’judgments, decisions, and behaviors. Indeed,when provided with both opportunity andmotivation, ordinary citizens prove to bequite capable of utilizing political information(Prior & Lupia, 2005).

Some have suggested that the volumeof political information retained in memory(and therefore available for retrieval duringan interview) may vastly underestimate theamount and diversity of information uponwhich people’s political opinions are based(Lodge, Steenbergen, & Brau, 1995). Ratherthan meticulously cataloging and storing thevast array of political information to whichthey are exposed, people may simply adjusttheir attitudes on-line, modifying their viewsin light of new information. Having incor-porated the information into their relevantopinions, people may choose not to expendthe additional effort to retain the informationin memory. It may be misleading, therefore,to use tests of political knowledge to drawinferences about the degree to which ordinarycitizens hold informed opinions.

As this discussion illustrates, the interpre-tation of political knowledge levels amongthe mass public is somewhat controversial.Regardless of one’s interpretation, however,the fact remains that most citizens do notknow very much about the people, policies,and institutions that comprise their politicalsystem.

WHY SUCH LOW LEVELS OFPOLITICAL KNOWLEDGE?

To begin to understand these low levelsof political knowledge, we must considerthe general processes by which people

become knowledgeable about various topics.People gain knowledge in two primaryways: (1) through direct experiences with anattitude object (Fazio & Zanna, 1981; Wood,Rhodes, & Biek, 1995); and (2) throughexposure and attention to information aboutthe object from other people, transmittedduring informal conversations (Robinson &Levy, 1986), formal schooling (Nie, Junn &Stehlik-Barry, 1996), or through the massmedia (McGuire, 1986; Roberts & Maccoby,1985). They acquire knowledge aboutsocial and political issues through exposureand attention to information provided byother people, especially by the news media(Clarke & Fredin, 1978; Clarke & Kline,1974; Perse, 1990).

Exposure, however, is just the first ofseveral steps in the process of knowledgeacquisition. After individuals are exposed tonew information, they must devote perceptualattention to it, bringing it into short-term orworking memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974).Of course, it is impossible for individualsto attend to all of the stimuli that bombardtheir senses at any given moment, so peopleselectively attend to some things and filterout the vast majority of others. Some of theinformation that is brought into short term orworking memory undergoes elaboration, dur-ing which an individual actively thinks aboutthe new information and relates it to informa-tion already stored in memory. Through thisprocess, associative links are built, connect-ing new information to previously acquiredinformation (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Themore extensively an individual processes newinformation, the stronger the neural traceand the more likely it will be availablefor later retrieval (e.g., Craik, 1977; Tyler,Hertel, MacCallum, & Ellis, 1979). Thus, theprocess of acquiring knowledge about thepolitical world is costly, imposing tremendouscognitive demands (Downs, 1957).

These demands are especially high forpeople who have little political knowledge tobegin with. Prior knowledge on a particulartopic improves people’s ability to comprehendnew information, enabling them to extractthe central elements of a message and draw



appropriate inferences efficiently (Eckhardt,Wood, & Jacobvitz, 1991; Recht & Leslie,1988). Prior knowledge also enhances peo-ple’s ability to store new information onthat topic and retrieve the information later(e.g., Cooke, Atlas, Lane, & Berger, 1993;Fiske, Lau, & Smith, 1990; Hambrick, 2003;McGraw & Pinney, 1990; Recht & Leslie,1988; Schneider, Gruber, Gold, & Opwis,1993). So the less political information indi-viduals have stored in memory, the more diffi-cult it is for them to acquire new information.

In addition to the substantial cognitiveburdens it imposes, the acquisition of politicalknowledge involves other costs as well. Inparticular, it reduces the resources availablefor acquiring information about other topics.The more a person is exposed to informationabout political issues and objects, and themore resources he or she devotes to attendingto and elaborating this information, the lesslikely it is that other available informationwill be stored in their long-term memory andavailable for later retrieval (e.g., Kahneman,1973). Thus, becoming more knowledgeableabout political matters often comes at the costof gaining knowledge about other topics.

DETERMINANTS OF POLITICALKNOWLEDGE

Under what circumstances are people willingto bear the cognitive burdens and opportunitycosts of becoming politically knowledgeable?And how do people select among the myriadpolitical issues and objects that vie for theirattention?

Incidental media exposure

People sometimes learn about the politicalworld through incidental exposure to newsmedia coverage of politics (Krugman &Hartley, 1970; Tweksbury, Weaver, &Maddex, 2001; Zukin & Snyder, 1984).For example, a person with no particularinterest in politics may nonetheless becomepolitically knowledgeable because he or sheroutinely watches the evening news, either

out of habit or because another householdmember regularly tunes in. Such passivelearning may be especially likely fromtelevised news broadcasts, which oftencontain vivid graphics and visual images thatrequire fewer cognitive resources to decodeand retain in memory (Graber, 1990).

Non-selective media exposure

People also intentionally expose themselvesto information about the political world. Manypeople tune in to general television or radionews programs or regularly visit pages onthe World Wide Web that cover a rangeof political topics, for example, leading toincreases in political knowledge (e.g., DelliCarpini & Keeter, 1997; Roberts & Maccoby,1985). The flowing nature of television andradio news programs does not easily affordnews consumers opportunities to exposethemselves to some stories and not others.Therefore, choosing to watch or hear suchprograms typically produces nonselectiveexposure to information on many topics.

The decision to tune in to television or radionews broadcasts is, of course, influenced byinterest in politics: those who find politicsintrinsically interesting are much more likelyto expose themselves to news programmingintentionally than those who are disinterestedin politics (e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1997;Luskin, 1990). News media consumption isalso influenced by more general surveillancemotives: those who are more intrinsicallymotivated to monitor their environment paymore attention and give more thought to newsbroadcasts than those with lower motivation(e.g., Eveland, Shah, & Kwak, 2003).

Issue-specific selective attention

People are selective not only in terms ofthe overall amount of attention they payto the news media, but also regarding theamount of attention they pay to coverageof specific issues. Indeed, people sometimesactively seek out information about someissue but make no special effort to gaininformation about others, rendering them



deeply knowledgeable about the former andless informed about the latter.

How do people decide which issues toattend to? One answer is suggested by thepositive correlation between the volume ofknowledge a person has stored in memoryabout an object and the importance peopleattach to their attitude toward the object.People consider themselves more knowledge-able about an object when their attitudestoward it are important to them (e.g., Bassili,1996; Krosnick, Boninger, Chuang, Berent, &Carnot, 1993; Prislin, 1996; Visser, 1998),and they can retrieve more information aboutthe attitude object from memory (Berent &Krosnick, 1995; Krosnick et al., 1993;Wood, 1982). The knowledge accompanyingmore important attitudes is also more likelyto be accurate (Krosnick, 1990). Theseassociations suggest that attitude importancemay provide the impetus for knowledgeacquisition, motivating people to gather andretain information about some attitude objectsat the expense of learning about others.Attitude importance is a person’s subjectivesense of how much significance to attach to anattitude–how much to care and be concernedabout it (see Boninger, Krosnick, Berent, &Fabrigar, 1995). Attaching importance ishighly consequential–it leads people to usethe attitude in processing information, makingdecisions, and selecting a course of action (fora review, see Boninger, Krosnick, Berent, &Fabrigar, 1995). And having substantialknowledge about the attitude object seemslikely to be quite useful to facilitating effectiveattitude use. As a result, attitude importancemay motivate the acquisition of relevantknowledge in long-term memory.

This may occur because attitude importanceguides people’s choices when they are decid-ing to which information they will attend.They may selectively attend to informationrelevant to their more important attitudes,particularly when available information isabundant and time or cognitive resourcesare limited. After they have been exposedto information, people may process it moredeeply if it is relevant to important attitudes,because such processing is likely to serve

strategic purposes later. As a result, this newinformation is more likely to be stored in long-term memory and available for later retrieval.

In a program of research employingboth naturalistic and laboratory investiga-tions, Holbrook, Berent, Krosnick, Visser, &Boninger (2005) recently documented pre-cisely these causal processes. They found,for example, that after watching a televisedpresidential debate under naturalistic condi-tions, viewers were better able to rememberthe candidates’ statements about policy issueson which they had more personally impor-tant attitudes. And they found that attitudeimportance regulated knowledge acquisitionby inspiring selective exposure and selectiveelaboration: when given the opportunity tochoose, people sought information about poli-cies toward which they had more personallyimportant attitudes, and chose to think moreabout these policies as well. Further, theydemonstrated that when the opportunity forselective exposure and selective elaborationwas eliminated, the relation between impor-tance and knowledge also disappeared. Takentogether, these findings suggest that attachingpersonal importance to an attitude motivatespeople to expose themselves selectively toattitude-relevant information and elaboratethat information, leading to the acquisitionand maintenance of information in long-termmemory.

But why do people attach importance tosome issues and objects and not others?Three primary antecedents of attitude impor-tance have been identified (see Boninger,Krosnick, & Berent, 1995). People attachimportance to some attitudes because theyperceive that the attitude object impingeson their material self-interests. For example,senior citizens who rely on Medicare would beespecially likely to attach importance to theirattitudes toward new Medicare policies.

People attach importance to other attitudesbecause they perceive a link between theattitude object and their core values. Valuesrefer to a person’s fundamental beliefs abouthow people ought to behave, or about whatend-states are desirable (Rokeach, 1968).Attitudes that are tightly linked to one or



more of a person’s core values are deemedmore important than attitudes that are looselyassociated with their values. For example, anindividual who cherishes the end-state of aworld at peace may see a connection betweenthis core value and his or her attitude towardthe Iraq war. This connection would lead themto attach personal importance to this attitude.

Finally, people attach importance to someattitudes because the groups or individualswith whom they identify are materiallyaffected by the object or consider theirattitudes toward the object to be important.For example, even if she never expects tobe personally affected by changes to abortionlaws, a woman may attach importance toher attitude toward legalized abortion becauseshe identifies with women everywhere, someof whom would be affected by changes inabortion laws.

Links to self interest, core values, orsocial identities often lead people to attachpersonal importance to particular politicalissues such as Medicare reform or legalizedabortion. But these antecedents can also leadpeople to attach importance to the domainof politics more generally, increasing theirmotivation to acquire knowledge about a widerange of political topics and issues. Thus,importance can inspire selective expertise onpolitical topics of particular significance toan individual, or it can inspire more generalinformation gains across a broad spectrum ofcurrently salient political topics.

An illustration: Attitudes towardlegalized abortion

One recent investigation illustrates several ofthese processes. Visser, Krosnick, and Norris(2004) explored the determinants of knowl-edge about legalized abortion. Replicatingpast research, they found that self-interest, theimportance of the issue to reference groupsand individuals, and value-relevance eachpredicted unique variance in the personalimportance that people attached to their atti-tudes on this issue. And attitude importancewas a strong predictor of the volume ofinformation people sought and possessedabout legalized abortion. This suggests thatpeople who cared deeply about the issue ofabortion sought out information about theissue, thought deeply about it, and retainedthe information in memory. Exposure to newsmedia, on the other hand, was unrelated tothe importance people attached to this issue,but it was a strong predictor of knowledgeabout legalized abortion (see Figure 12.1).Thus, both selective and nonselective mediaexposure appear to have contributed to levelsof knowledge about abortion.

CONSEQUENCES OF KNOWLEDGE

We began this chapter by noting that demo-cratic theory rests on the assumption thatcitizens are both informed and engaged,

Self-Interest

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Figure 12.1 Determinants of knowledge as documented by Visser, Krosnick, and Norris(2004)

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capable of selecting political leaders whorepresent their goals and interests, andof holding those leaders accountable oncein office. As we have seen, however, anoverwhelming body of evidence calls intoquestion ordinary citizens’ ability to performthese duties. Just how concerned should we beabout the dearth of political knowledge withinthe general public? In other words, what arethe consequences of possessing or failing topossess political knowledge?

Generally speaking, possessing a largestore of information confers a host ofcognitive abilities, with clear implicationsfor attitudes and behavior. In addition toaiding comprehension and retention of newinformation, knowledge increases the speedof relevant judgments (e.g., Fiske et al.,1990; Paull & Glencross, 1997) and improvespeople’s ability to utilize cues in decisiontasks (Paull & Glencross, 1997). This suggeststhat people with more political knowledgeare better able to integrate various aspectsof political issues efficiently and effectively,weigh the advantages and disadvantages ofspecific political policies, and synthesizethe diverse attributes of political candidates.Thus, their political attitudes are likely toreflect a more thorough and sophisticatedcombination of the positive and negativeaspects of the objects, issues, and people theyencounter in the political realm.

Consistent with this notion, a good deal ofevidence suggests that people who possess alarge store of political knowledge are betterable to recognize links between particularpolitical policies and their own materialinterests or other core predispositions, andthey are better able to identify politicalcandidates who are likely to share their viewsand work to enact laws that they support (DelliCarpini & Keeter, 1996; Zaller, 1992). Thepolitically knowledgeable are also better ableto recognize the ideological underpinnings ofvarious policy positions, and are more likely toadopt ideologically coherent attitudes across arange of issues (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996).Thus, knowledge enables people to utilizeincoming political information efficiently andeffectively.

Knowledge also improves people’s abilityto evaluate critically the cogency of per-suasive messages (Ratneshwar & Chaiken,1991; Wood, Kallren, & Preisler, 1985) andto generate effective counter-arguments to apersuasive appeal, rendering them resistantto attitude change (Muthukrishnan, Pham, &Mungale, 1999; Wood, 1982; Wood et al.,1995). This suggests that the politicallyknowledgeable are less likely to be buffetedabout by the constantly shifting winds ofpolitical rhetoric. Instead, they scrutinizecounter-attitudinal information and defendtheir views against all but the most compellingchallenges to their attitudes. Indeed, peoplewith more political knowledge exhibit greaterattitude stability over time than people whopossess less knowledge (Delli Carpini &Keeter, 1996).

Knowledge also equips people with theinformation they need to plan and executeeffective behavioral strategies, enabling themto engage in attitude-expressive behaviorsefficiently. For example, knowledge aboutenvironmental conservation has been shownto enable people with pro-environmentalattitudes to express their views behaviorally(e.g., Kallgren & Wood, 1986; Meinhold &Malkus, 2005). And knowledge about thepolitical world is a highly significant predictorof voting behavior: people who possess alarge store of political knowledge are far morelikely to turn out on election day than thosewho are less knowledgeable (Delli Carpini &Keeter, 1996; Popkin & Dimock, 1999).

THE LIMITED IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE

As the preceding review illustrates, there is awealth of evidence suggesting that knowledgeconfers a host of cognitive abilities, all ofwhich would seem to facilitate effectivenavigation of the political terrain, suggestingthat interventions that raise the public’slevel of political knowledge have positiveconsequences for the functioning of democ-racy. This conclusion may be premature,however. In other domains, the acquisitionof knowledge has very limited consequences.



In the realm of public health, for example,practitioners have often sought to raiseknowledge levels in hopes of improvinghealth decisions and modifying behavioralchoices. But interventions that have success-fully increased the public’s level of knowledgehave often failed to produce the anticipatedconsequences of this newfound knowledge.

This was certainly the case in the initialefforts to combat AIDS in the United States.Public health officials assumed that if theycould increase people’s knowledge about thedisease, people would make the appropriatemodifications to their behaviors (Helweg-Larsen & Collins, 1997). A massive publiceducation campaign was developed to educatepeople about the disease (for a review, seeFisher & Fisher, 1992). In terms of itsprimary goal, this campaign was a resoundingsuccess. By the early 1990s, virtually allUS adults knew what AIDS was, had somesense of how the disease is transmitted, andknew what steps could be taken to avoidexposure (DiClemente, Forrest, Mickler, &Principal Site Investigators, 1990; Rogers,Singer, & Imperio, 1993). But in terms of itsbroader aims, this public education campaignwas largely a failure, yielding virtually noreliable effects on people’s actual behaviors(e.g., Mann, Tarantola, & Netter, 1992).Knowledge, in and of itself, was insufficientfor changing judgments and behaviors.

Similar efforts have been initiated in recentyears to increase the public’s knowledge aboutthe health consequences of obesity. As a partof this effort, the US Department of Health andHuman Services hosts a webpage designedto provide health information based on thepremise that “accurate scientific informationon nutrition and dietary guidance is critical tothe public’s ability to make the right choicesin the effort to curb obesity and other foodrelated diseases” (www.healthierus.gov). Sofar, though, these kinds of informationcampaigns seem not to have had their intendedeffect: the proportion of US adults who areoverweight or obese has risen steadily overthe last decade, reaching a startling 66% inone recent national study (Hedley, Ogden,Johnson, Carroll, & Curtin, 2004).

And the same sorts of findings haveemerged in the political domain. For example,results from “deliberative polls” suggest thateven substantial increases in political knowl-edge often exert little impact on politicalviews (Fishkin, 1991, 1995). According toits proponents, deliberative polling providesinsight into the issue positions that ordi-nary citizens would hold “were they betterinformed on the issues and had the opportunityand motivation to examine those issuesseriously” (Fishkin, 1995, p. 162). But theresults of these intensive interventions haveoften been quite modest.

The first and most widely publicizeddeliberative poll, held in early 1996, providesa dramatic illustration (Merkel, 1996). Nearly500 US citizens were assembled in Austin,Texas, for an intense weekend of educationand deliberation. Leading up to the weekend,participants were provided with briefingreports on several of the most salient issuesof the day, and during the weekend expertsin various policy domains provided furtherinformation and answered questions about theissues. In small groups, participants engagedin face-to-face discussions with other citizens,further expanding the range of perspectivesand information to which participants wereexposed.

Despite the intensity of this experience andthe volume of information that participantswere exposed to, substantive shifts in politicalviews were the exception rather than the rule(Kohut, 1996; Mitofsky, 1996). In fact, ofthe 81 political opinions that were assessedbefore and immediately after the event,only 20 registered statistically significantchange at the aggregate level; the remaining60 political opinions were impervious tothe intense barrage of political information(Kohut, 1996).And very few of these involvedchanges from one side of an issue to another.These findings suggest that even dramaticincreases in political knowledge have modesteffects on political opinions.

More tightly controlled experimental inves-tigations have yielded similar evidence. Inone recent demonstration, Tichy and Krosnick(2001) examined knowledge among the



general public about US energy policies.Specifically, they assessed how much ordinarycitizens know about the costs and benefitsof various modes of electricity generation,and they explored the implications of thisknowledge for people’s preferences abouthow electricity should be generated in thefuture. They found remarkably low knowl-edge levels: only about 30% of participantsrecognized that coal is the most prevalentsource of electricity in the US. And thevast majority mistakenly believed that theproduction of solar energy is inexpensive(63%) or only moderately expensive (26%)when in fact it is very expensive to pro-duce. Overall, they found that few peoplecorrectly understood how electricity is gen-erated today. or the advantages and disad-vantages of various methods of electricitygeneration.

Tichy and Krosnick (2001) then exploredthe consequences of increasing the amountof knowledge people possess about electric-ity generation. They presented a randomlyselected subset of their participants withaccurate information about electricity gen-eration, specifically, about the percentageof America’s electricity that is currentlyproduced by various methods, the cost, type(s)and quantity of pollution each produces,and other notable advantages or drawbackscharacteristic of each method. Subsequently,participants were asked about their pref-erences regarding specific energy policies.Other participants were asked the same setof questions about their energy policy pref-erences without the background information.

They found that providing participants withaccurate information induced very modestopinion shifts. For example, increasing peo-ple’s knowledge about electricity generationled to a modest increase in the propor-tion of people who supported the use ofcoal (21% vs. 11%), presumably becausefew people had realized that coal is asinexpensive as it is. Educating participantsalso led to a decrease in support for solarpower generation (19% vs. 13%), proba-bly because few people had realized thatwind is considerably less expensive than

solar power. Although statistically significant,the magnitude of these changes suggeststhat public information did little to alterpeople’s preferences regarding electricitygeneration.

This pattern of findings has been cor-roborated in the domain of welfare policy(Kuklinski, Quirk, Jerit, Schwieder, & Rich,2000). Most Americans are dramaticallymisinformed about basic facts relevant tothe current welfare policy debate. In onerecent survey, containing six factual questionsabout welfare, none of the questions wasanswered correctly by more than half ofthe participants, and only 3% of participantsgot more than half of the questions correct.Remarkably, however, providing people withaccurate information about welfare had noimpact on people’s welfare policy prefer-ences; they were no different for people whohad and had not received the information(Kuklinski et al., 2000). Here too, people’sattitudes seem not to be tightly bound to theknowledge they possess about the attitudeobject.

WHY SUCH MODEST EFFECTS?

Taken together, a diverse set of evidencesuggests that even fairly drastic increases inthe amount of political information peoplehave about an object don’t always lead todiscernable changes in relevant attitudes orbehaviors. This may seem at odds withthe litany of powerful consequences ofknowledge that we reviewed earlier, but theresolution lies in a clearer understanding ofhow knowledge operates.

Knowledge is a powerful enabler. Itconfers particular cognitive and behavioralabilities, facilitating a great number oftasks. But virtually all deliberate judgmentsor behaviors require more than abilityalone—they also require sufficient levels ofmotivation. Motives exert an energizing influ-ence, instigating, directing, and sustainingactions aimed at achieving currently salientgoals. Without adequate motivation, evendramatic increases in ability will have little



impact on judgments or behavior. Unlesspeople are already motivated to engagein the political process, interventions thatincrease knowledge alone are likely to havemodest effects on political judgments andbehavior.

Disentangling the impact ofmotivation and ability

All of this suggests that when an outcome(e.g., a particular judgment, the formationof an opinion, the enactment of a behavior)requires specific information and does notrequire the energizing and directive forceof motivation, levels of political knowledgeregulate the outcome. When an outcomerequires motivation but does not requirespecific information, political knowledge willnot regulate the outcome (though motivatingfactors will). And when an outcome requiresthe copresence of information and motiva-tion, political knowledge will regulate theoutcome in conjunction with a motivatingforce.

Recent evidence supports each of thesecontentions (Visser et al., 2004). For example,when people evaluate the fairness of mediacoverage of an issue, they often exhibita “hostile media” bias, or the tendencyto perceive that a balanced presentation ofinformation on a controversial issue is biasedagainst one’s own side of the issue (Vallone,Ross, & Lepper, 1985).

This bias is driven at least partly by thefact that people spontaneously compare theirown store of information about an issueto the information presented by the media.Because people tend to possess more attitude-congruent than attitude-incongruent informa-tion, even a balanced media presentationappears to have omitted more of the formerthan of the latter, producing the perception ofa bias against one’s own side of the issue.This suggests that possessing information,regardless of one’s level of motivation, shouldregulate the hostile media bias. And indeed,people who are very knowledgeable aboutan issue perceive a much stronger hostilemedia bias than do people who are less

knowledgeable about the issue (Visser et al.,2004). The amount of importance peopleattach to the issue, on the other hand, doesnot regulate the magnitude of the hostilemedia bias.

A different outcome produced the oppositepattern of results. When told that they wouldbe evaluating a series of political candidatesand given an opportunity to selectivelyexpose themselves to information abouteach candidate, attitude importance (andnot attitude-relevant knowledge) regulatedthe type of information people chose. Forexample, people who attached importance tothe issue of capital punishment requested can-didates’ positions on that issue significantlymore often than those who attached littleimportance to the issue. The volume of issue-relevant information stored in memory had noimpact on selective exposure. Thus, attachingimportance to the issue motivated participantsto seek information that enabled them to usetheir attitudes when evaluating candidates, butpossessing knowledge did not.

A third outcome revealed yet anotherpattern of results. Performing an attitude-expressive behavior requires sufficient moti-vation to do so, as well as sufficient knowledgeto plan and execute appropriate behavioralstrategies. And indeed, across two stud-ies, attitude importance and attitude-relevantknowledge were both positively associatedwith increases in attitude-expressive behavior,but the combination of high importanceand high knowledge was associated witha particularly pronounced surge in attitude-expressive behavior (Visser et al., 2004).

The consequences of knowledge, therefore,depend on the nature of the outcome.Knowledge confers a host of importantcognitive and behavioral abilities, and foroutcomes that depend solely on these abilities,knowledge has powerful consequences. Abil-ity alone, however, is insufficient for manyoutcomes. For outcomes that are primarilydriven by motivational forces, knowledgeis quite inconsequential. And for outcomesthat demand both ability and motivation,knowledge is a necessary but not a sufficientantecedent.



CORRELATION AND CAUSATION

Taken together, these findings raise an impor-tant caveat about interpreting past findingsregarding the consequences of politicalknowledge. With exceedingly few exceptions,inferences about the implications of politicalknowledge for political opinions and behav-iors have been based on observed correlationsbetween levels of political knowledge andother variables. Political knowledge has beenshown to correlate with factors such as polit-ical participation, tolerance, and ideologicalconstraint, among other things (for a review,see Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996).

The preferred explanation for these findingsis that political knowledge causes a widerange of desirable outcomes, and such causalclaims are ubiquitous in the literature. Forexample, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996)conclude that political knowledge “boostsparticipation” (p. 224), “promotes a numberof civic attitudes such as political interestand efficacy” (p. 224), leads citizens todevelop more numerous, stable, and internallyconsistent attitudes’ (p. 228), among otherthings.

The broad acceptance of these causalclaims about the profound impact of politicalknowledge on the basis of correlationalevidence is remarkable, particularly in lightof the fact that other causal processes provideequally plausible accounts for the observedrelations between political knowledge andother variables. Rather than knowledge “pro-moting” political interest or efficacy, forexample, it is equally reasonable to supposethat being interested in politics or feelingpolitically efficacious motivates people toacquire political knowledge, reflecting thereverse causal mechanism. And rather thanknowledge “boosting” political participation,it is entirely plausible that some third factormay produce both outcomes. We know, forexample, that the importance people attach topolitics is likely to inspire both knowledgeacquisition and political participation. Thus,the relation between knowledge and partici-pation could be entirely spurious, driven bytheir mutual relation to importance.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

This discussion makes clear that a numberof issues remain unresolved, and providesguidance for future research. Perhaps mostfundamental is the need for greater clarityabout precisely what kind of informationis necessary for the successful execution ofcitizen duties (Krosnick, 1998; Kuklinski &Quirk, 2001; Lupia, in press). This posesa significant challenge, but it is one thatthe field must confront before real progresscan be made toward understanding theantecedents of political knowledge as well asits consequences for the attitudes, beliefs, andbehaviors of individuals.

Another high priority is the accumulationof more experimental evidence regardingthe causal effects of political knowledge.Continuing to assess the correlations betweenmeasures of political knowledge and othervariables is unlikely to yield important newinsights regarding the consequences of knowl-edge. But directly manipulating politicalknowledge and tracing the implications forother outcomes and processes may well doso. Such investigations should also explorepotential moderators of the impact of politicalknowledge. Its consequences are likely to varydepending on a host of other factors.

In particular, additional research is neces-sary to explore more fully when and howknowledge interacts with various motiva-tional factors to influence behavior. Contri-butions of this sort would provide much moreprecise leverage for identifying the necessaryand sufficient conditions under which politicalknowledge exerts its impact.

CONCLUSION

A wealth of evidence from decades ofsurvey research suggests that most citizensknow remarkably little about the politicalworld, raising deep concerns among socialscientists about the degree to which citizens’attitudes and beliefs reflect careful con-sideration of relevant political information.Indeed, evidence from the psychological



literature indicates that knowledge confersimportant cognitive abilities, many of whichwould seem to be important for meetingthe obligations of democratic citizenship.Inferences about current levels of politicalknowledge among the general public and theimpact of these knowledge levels on citizens’attitudes, beliefs, and behavior must be drawnwith caution, however.Anumber of importantconceptual and methodological limitationsmust be addressed before strong conclusionscan be drawn about the antecedents andconsequences of political knowledge.

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