Thursday, August 21st, 2014 09:31:07

Politicial Stereotyping

While we might like to think that voters research the issues, review the candidates, and then vote for the candidate that best reflects their views; the reality, based on political science research, is much different. According to George Washington University Professor Danny Hayes’ research paper “When Gender and Party Collide: Stereotyping in Candidate Trait Attribution,” “Stereotypes are relevant in politics because citizens are willing to devote only limited time to thinking about political matters. As a result, political judgments — whether about issues, events or candidates — are often the result of a few salient cues. Stereotyping is the assignment of ‘identical characteristics to any person in a group regardless of the actual variation among members of that group.'”