The project aims to study the information search strategies enacted by voters during an election campaign from the standpoint of heuristics, i.e., cognitive shortcuts used by individuals in order to make decisions. The project is innovative in that it involves the application in a new context – the Italian political system – of a technique heretofore used only in the United States and adopts an unusual approach for the Italian research context on voting behaviour, traditionally based on ecological studies and sample surveys. The project involves the development of an on-line simulation of a mayoral election campaign. Lau and Redlawsk developed an innovative voting decision model via a “dynamic information board”: a software tool for simulating election campaigns tailored to observe information research strategies in which voters engage. The virtual environment reproduces the presence of candidates and parties and introduces participants to variable sets of information in order to evaluate their use of different sources. The simulation – developed ex novo for this project – reproduces the flow of information to which a typical voter is subject during a real election campaign. Within each research unit, participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups that were associated with different potential heuristic profiles. The specific focus of the study undertaken by the local research unit concerns pre-election polls. Opinion polls produce information flows – originating among citizens and directed to public authorities – that are more extensive, detailed and constant over time than those generated by actual elections. The local research unit’s efforts concern, in particular, the use of the *opinion poll heuristic* and addresses three specific topics: attitudes towards opinion poll in terms of reliability and usefulness; actual access to opinion poll flow items; effects on final voting decisions of “forced” exposition to polls on voting intentions.
2010-12: "Electoral Choice: Voters' Heuristic Strategies and Information Processing", PRIN 2008, coordinatore nazionale Piergiorgio Corbetta
GASPERONI, Giancarlo
2012
Abstract
The project aims to study the information search strategies enacted by voters during an election campaign from the standpoint of heuristics, i.e., cognitive shortcuts used by individuals in order to make decisions. The project is innovative in that it involves the application in a new context – the Italian political system – of a technique heretofore used only in the United States and adopts an unusual approach for the Italian research context on voting behaviour, traditionally based on ecological studies and sample surveys. The project involves the development of an on-line simulation of a mayoral election campaign. Lau and Redlawsk developed an innovative voting decision model via a “dynamic information board”: a software tool for simulating election campaigns tailored to observe information research strategies in which voters engage. The virtual environment reproduces the presence of candidates and parties and introduces participants to variable sets of information in order to evaluate their use of different sources. The simulation – developed ex novo for this project – reproduces the flow of information to which a typical voter is subject during a real election campaign. Within each research unit, participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups that were associated with different potential heuristic profiles. The specific focus of the study undertaken by the local research unit concerns pre-election polls. Opinion polls produce information flows – originating among citizens and directed to public authorities – that are more extensive, detailed and constant over time than those generated by actual elections. The local research unit’s efforts concern, in particular, the use of the *opinion poll heuristic* and addresses three specific topics: attitudes towards opinion poll in terms of reliability and usefulness; actual access to opinion poll flow items; effects on final voting decisions of “forced” exposition to polls on voting intentions.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
