This article has evaluated several separate, yet related, research questions. First, relationships between TOVD and a number of measures of attitudinal consistency, intensity and direction have been established. Second, the data suggest that attitudinal measures which tap into multiple attitudinal dimensions are better able to explain TOVD than are measures which are based upon only one dimension. Finally, it has been shown that recognizing that some factors are more important to vote decisions than are others, and weighting these factors accordingly when calculating summary attitudinal measures, improves the ability of such measures to account for TOVD patterns. This article’s three expectations are consistent with results.
The article’s primary expectation, that TOVD is related to measures of attitudinal consistency, intensity and direction, has received firm support. All of the attitudinal measures considered here, whether they tap into one or more of these dimensions, have been found to have statistically significant relationships with TOVD. Attitudes also have been shown to have a significant impact upon TOVD; individuals
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with low values for these variables have very different TOVD patterns than do those with high values.
The introduction of a new measure of ambivalence, and the decision to focus upon the entire range of variables included in the multi-stage recursive model, represent significant improvements over existing studies of ambivalence. Griffin et al.’s objective ambivalence is unable to differentiate between individuals who have positive and negative summary evaluations towards the party voted for, and Fournier’s actual ambivalence does not take into account the intensity of attitudes. In contrast, the revised version of Griffin’s formula provides insight into the consistency, intensity and
direction of attitudes. Additionally, by considering information from the seven stages of the multi-stage recursive model, the variables considered here provide more nuanced summary attitudinal measures than those based upon fewer factors. While further work is required to examine the worth of these two methodological advances in other settings, the results of this study are promising.
The article’s findings suggest a number of questions worth future consideration. First, the models in Table 2-2 group voters of all parties together (although the variables and weights included in the calculation of these factors differ according to party). Future work can examine whether, and the extent to which, party choice moderates the relationship between TOVD and these attitudinal measures. For instance, is it the case that the victorious party is more successful than its opponents at attracting voters with inconsistent or weak attitudes, or those voters with negative summary evaluations towards the party voted for? Additionally, the introduction of the multi-stage recursive model as a framework upon which to base the calculation of attitudinal variables makes
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it possible to focus upon short- and long-term factors separately, and it is conceivable that these two types of variables may have different impacts upon TOVD. Attitudinal measures based upon long-term factors like sociodemographic characteristics, underlying values and beliefs and partisanship may have a different relationship with TOVD than measures based upon shorter-term factors like economic evaluations, issues, leadership evaluations and opinions of government performance. For example, late deciding voters might conceivably be swayed by campaign events and focus upon some of these shorter-term factors, to the exclusion of long-term factors. If short-term and long-term attitudes are inconsistent with one another, however, such an individual may be considered here to be relatively conflicted. If his or her decision were based upon short-term factors alone, this person may not actually be experiencing a sense of internal conflict. The relative importance of short- and long-term factors to measures of consistency, intensity and direction can be evaluated to further elucidate the impact of these attitudinal measures upon TOVD.
An additional avenue for future research springs from the question of the relative impact of each of the three attitudinal dimensions considered here upon TOVD. Given the nature of the survey question used to evaluate subjective ambivalence (and thus attitudinal consistency), and given that these three attitudinal dimensions are generally correlated with one another, it is difficult to base any conclusions about the relative impact of these three attitudinal dimensions upon the unidimensional variables in Table 2-2. However, the results from the multi-dimensional variables suggest that the direction of summary evaluations may have a greater impact upon TOVD than does attitudinal intensity. Actual ambivalence, which taps into consistency and direction,
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performs markedly better than Griffin’s original ambivalence variable, which is based upon consistency and intensity. Since consistency is factored into both variables, this could suggest that direction may be more important to TOVD than intensity. That the revised version of Griffin’s ambivalence performs much better than the original, but only slightly better than actual ambivalence (which already considers direction), provides additional evidence of the relative importance of direction. While further work is required to explore this possibility in greater detail, these results are suggestive, and validates the decision taken here to alter Griffin’s formula.
Political actors may benefit considerably from an exploration of these and similar questions. Being able to identify voters with inconsistent or weak attitudes, and those who are most likely to vote against the bulk of their attitudes would no doubt be of interest to those hoping to influence the outcome of an election. Understanding the types of persuasive messages that these voters respond to could be the key to winning the support of undecided voters, stealing votes from opponents and winning elections.
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