Political Decision-Making

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a general framework for studying individual political decision-making that applies to both everyday citizens and to political elites. Focusing primarily on mass behavior, it presents this framework within a broader cognitive perspective of humans as limited-capacity information processors who have developed at least two quite distinct modes of processing, one preconscious, automatic, low effort, and extremely fast (System 1); the other conscious, volitional, high effect, and relatively slow (System 2). After a brief foray into rational choice theory, the chapter spends much more time with behavioral decision theory and its bounded rationality perspective on how people normally cope with their cognitive limits. The strengths and weaknesses of various methods for studying decision-making are reviewed. Four broad types of decision strategies are discussed: dispassionate, confirmatory, fast and frugal, and intuitive. The effects of integral and incidental emotions on decision-making are also reviewed. The chapter concludes by considering the effects of decision strategy on decision quality and learning.