Motivated Social Cognitions about Politics

This book explores differences in the way people
interpret political messages. Specifically it
addresses how people perceive discrepant political
messages from a favored versus an opposing candidate.
This work argues that people who possess a high
degree of integrative complexity, which is considered
the ability to see events as interrelated, will
perceive messages differently than those low in
integrative complexity. Furthermore, it was proposed
that the way in which a person is involved in
politics will also affect how they perceive these
messages. Findings from this study suggest that
campaigns that run political attack ads may not be
targeting independent voters as well as they hope.
This is because attack ads tend to polarize voters
who are already decided, and tend to leave
independent voters needing more information in order
to make a more informed judgment.

Autorentext
Currently Studying Political Communication at Michigan State University while working on her Doctorate in Communication. Timothy R. Levine holds a PhD from Michigan State University where he is currently a professor in the Department of Communication. His research interests include interpersonal communication, persuasion, deception, cross-cultural communication, and research methods. He has published more than 70 journal articles on these topics.