| Considerable evidence supports the view that information processing often operates in an automatic, less conscious mode of cognition (Lodge & Taber, 2013). Such automatic or "implicit attitudes" have been shown to be a strong predictor of a variety of political outcomes (Perez, 2013). Despite such evidence, it remains unclear the mechanism linking implicit attitudes to political decision-making. This dissertation project attempts to shed light on this issue by examining the impact of implicit attitudes on political information search and candidate evaluation. In my experimental design, I use both the implicit association test (IAT) and the dynamic information board methodology (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006) to directly assess the effect of implicit racial attitudes on how subjects search for information and evaluate political candidates in the context of a mock presidential campaign. I also address a key criticism in this literature by exploring under what conditions implicit attitudes are likely to have stronger and weaker effects on political behavior. To do this, I include a set of manipulations that vary a key feature of the information environment (high vs. low cognitive load) and subjects' emotional state (positive vs. negative). The results from this project provide a direct assessment of both implicit attitudes' impact on information search and candidate evaluation as well as potential moderating factors. Turning to the results, my main finding is that implicit racial bias is a strong predictor of subjects' information search patterns, which in turn impact candidate evaluation and vote choice. However, as I demonstrate in subsequent chapters, the relationship between implicit bias and voter decision-making is moderated by changes to the information environment. The results from this project provide insight into a key pathway (information search) through which implicit attitudes impact decision-making. Moreover, I empirically demonstrate important potential boundary conditions for understanding the influence of such attitudes on behavior. |
