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The Role of Social Groups in Political Thinking
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2009
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This article outlines a cognitive-affective model of the role of social groups in political thinking. The model is based on the assumptions that people have stored information and emotional reactions to social groups, and that people are purposive in their thinking about social groups in the sense that they are interested in understanding what various groups have obtained and whether it is deserved. The process through which social groups influence political thinking varies significantly depending upon whether an individual identifies with the group in question. Generally, people are more inclined to feel sympathetic towards the groups to which they belong. These ideas are illustrated with an empirical analysis that focuses on women's issues and makes use of data collected in the 1984 National Election Study Pilot Study.
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References
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43 An exception to this general pattern may occur for outgroups where people's affect is very strong and their schemata are very well-developed. In the United States, racial groups are a key example of this. We might therefore expect to find that racial groups have a greater role than other groups in the political thinking of whites. See Carmines, Edward G. and Stimson, James A., ‘Racial Issues and the Structure of Mass Belief Systems’, Journal of Politics, 44 (1982), 2–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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47 Male groups associated with sports teams, men's clubs and the military may promote bonding and a sense of solidarity among their members; but they do not necessarily create a heightened sense of group identity (i.e., ‘I am a man’) or, more important, group consciousness. Similarly, in the 1970s one backlash of the women's movement was the creation of a ‘men's’ movement. However, this movement never really ‘took-off’, either in the popular culture or as a topic of academic research. For a discussion on the men's movement see, David, Deborah S. and Brannon, Robert, The Forty-nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1976).Google Scholar
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50 When variables are rescaled to a zero-to-one format they are not being dichotomized. The lowest value is set to 0, the highest value to 1 and all intermediate categories to corresponding fractional values.
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