Abstract
Abstract Political cognition is the process of turning political information and political communications into meaningful judgments, evaluations, and decisions within the human mind. Over the past 70 years, political cognition research has expanded from studying how people should consider political decisions, to focus on how they actually do. The earliest work examined how people should rationally approach the process of political decision‐making by incorporating cost‐benefit analysis and probabilistic considerations about potential outcomes. This was subsequently augmented by behavioral studies that demonstrated that people are simply not able to conduct such complex calculations and instead operate within the limitations of the human mind. By using cognitive shortcuts, people make decisions that approximate rational decisions, but are not perfect. The most recent developments in the field now incorporate theories of how emotions and biological predispositions influence cognition, preceding our conscious awareness and directing the manner in which cognition occurs.
Published Version
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