Political Science Literature Review Regarding Erber
Hypothesis One: “Alienation from the political system, as indicated by the distance between a respondent’s stands on the issues and his or her perceptions of the issue stands of both the incumbent and the challenger in a presidential election (or from the Democratic and Republican parties), will cause an increase in cynicism chiefly for respondents with an issues chronicity.” (239)
Hypothesis Two: “Disapproval of the incumbent president’s job performance will cause an increase in cynicism mainly for respondents with a person chronicity” (239)
Alienation from the political system is the distance one’s view is from that of major political candidates and the two major parties. The distance between a respondent’s stands on the issues and his or her perceptions of the issue stands of the incumbent and challenger in a presidential election is measured by seeing how far people perceive their opinions to be from that of the candidates and parties.
Concepts were measured quantatively. The cynicisim scale from 1976 was subjected to ANCOVA with issue chronicity. Two political chronicities are operationalized. These include one based on issues and one based on persons. Chronicities are chronically accessible cognitive constructs or schemas.
The 1972-1976 panel of the CPS National Election Studies data was the component that these hypotheses were tested against. Respondents in 1972 randomly received one of two different questionnaires. The number of cynical responses to the five questions about trust in government was counted and this was divided by the number of legitimate answers to the five questions. The result was multiplied by five and returned to its original 0-5 scale. The responses to open-ended questions about what respondents liked and disliked about candidates and parties was analyzed and whether they were relevant to issues, persons, parties, groups, or “none of the above”. The first response to any question counts 3; the second response 2, and the third response 1. Separate weighted counts are computed for the four categories of issues, persons, parties, and groups and for the four attitude objects which include two candidates and two parties. Each count is divided by the total number of responses given to each question. The four indicators of political chronicity were averaged together to form a summary measure of each type of chronicity.
A significant interaction is present among the three factors specified in hypothesis one. Cynicism scores increase according to the distance to both candidates and they increase along the main diagonal. Respondents who have issues chronicity, seeing themselves distant from both candidates have the highest cynicism score. Respondents who perceived themselves to be close to Carter and intermediate to Ford and those perceiving themselves to be distant from Ford but intermediate to Carter were just as cynical as those who perceived themselves to be distant from both candidates. The most cynical are those respondents with an issue chronicity who see themselves as distant from both candidates’ issue stands.
