Broadening Our Perspective

Abstract

The research I have presented examines the social component of political behavior. The study has advanced from the basic model of explaining political behavior based largely on models of slow changing individual-level characteristics. Over the past decade or so, political scientists have paid great attention to examining not only what matters for various types of political activities and attitudes but also to why such factors matter. The idea that social interaction matters for political behavior has been widely accepted. Scholars such as Coleman, Putnam, Huckfeldt and Sprague, Mutz and Mondak, and Cramer-Walsh to name a few, have highlighted the importance of studying social interaction. Just as Steinbeck and Alsop experienced Prague entirely differently, so do people experience life differently—some people like their jobs more than others, some feel stronger attachments to their neighborhoods or churches—and these differences in social experiences matter for political behavior. We expect social factors to affect political behavior. Past research has shown that differences in social experiences matter for politics. First, social interaction provides information. People interact with one another leading, at the very least, to the dissemination of information. Second, social attachments possibly magnify the importance of politics.KeywordsCommunity PsychologistPolitical DiscussionPolitical BehaviorSocial ComponentPolitical KnowledgeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.