Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, USA.
Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, USA.
Cognition. 2019 Jul;188:27-38. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.01.003. Epub 2019 Mar 18.
An emerging literature in psychology and political science has identified political identity as an important driver of political decisions. However, less is known about how a person's political identity is incorporated into their broader self-concept and why it influences some people more than others. We examined the role of political identity in representations of the self-concept as one determinant of people's political behaviors. We tested the predictions of a recent theoretical account of self-concept representation that, inspired by work on conceptual representation, emphasizes the role of causal beliefs. This account predicts that people who believe that their political identity is causally central (linked to many other features of the self-concept) will be more likely to engage in behaviors consistent with their political identity than those who believe that the same aspect is causally peripheral (linked to fewer other features). Consistent with these predictions, in a study run when political identity was particularly salient-during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election-we found that U.S. voters who believed their political party identity was more causally central (vs. those who believe it was causally peripheral) were more likely to vote for their political party's candidate. Further, in two studies, we found that U.K. residents who believed that their English or British national identity was more causally central were more likely to support the U.K. leaving the European Union (Brexit) than those who believed the same identities were more causally peripheral.
心理学和政治科学领域的新兴文献已经确定，政治身份是政治决策的重要驱动因素。然而，人们对个人的政治身份如何融入更广泛的自我概念以及为什么它对某些人比其他人的影响更大知之甚少。我们研究了政治身份在自我概念代表性中的作用，将其作为人们政治行为的一个决定因素。我们检验了自我概念代表性的一个新理论观点的预测，该观点受到概念代表性工作的启发，强调了因果信念的作用。该观点预测，那些认为自己的政治身份具有因果核心地位（与自我概念的许多其他特征相关联）的人，比那些认为同一方面具有因果边缘地位（与自我概念的其他特征关联较少）的人更有可能从事与其政治身份一致的行为。这些预测与我们的研究结果一致，在一项针对政治身份特别突出的研究中——在 2016 年美国总统选举期间——我们发现，认为自己的政党身份更具有因果核心地位（与那些认为自己的政党身份具有因果边缘地位的人相比）的美国选民更有可能投票给本党候选人。此外，在两项研究中，我们发现，那些认为自己的英国或英国国民身份更具有因果核心地位的英国居民更有可能支持英国脱欧（英国退出欧盟），而那些认为同样的身份具有因果边缘地位的人则不太可能支持。
