Emotion, Neuroscience and Responses to Survey Questions: A Neuro Potpourri* George Bishop and Stephen Mockabee ([email protected]) ([email protected]) University of Cincinnati *George Bishop is a retired professor of political science and currently a part-time student at the University of Cincinnati; Stephen Mockabee is an Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Cincinnati.
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Emotion, Neuroscience and Responses to Survey Questions: …Emotion, Neuroscience and Responses to Survey Questions: A Neuro Potpourri* George Bishop and Stephen Mockabee ([email protected])
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Emotion, Neuroscience and Responses to Survey Questions:
UniversityofCincinnati*George Bishop is a retired professor of political science and currently a part-time student at the University of Cincinnati; Stephen Mockabee is an Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Cincinnati.
“Ninety-eight percent of whatthe mind does is outsideconscious awareness.”
Michael Gazzaniga The Mind’s Past
Affective-Cognitive Neuroscience: Implications for Understanding the Survey Response
• The rationalistic, enlightenment model of public opinion [Gallup>Newport] is dead!
• We don’t know what we are thinking or whywe are thinking what we are thinking
• We have no introspective access to the affective-cognitive processes underlying our responses to survey questions….So asking
More A-C Neuroscience Implications and Propositions
• Asking Rs “Why?” yields mostly plausible, after-the-fact justifications, confabulations and cognitive by-products of largely unconscious processes
• Conservatives have bigger Amygdala (s); liberalslarger, more active ACCs
• “Just Because You’re Imaging the Brain Doesn’t Mean You Can Stop Using Your Head…”
• Beauty of Brain Image Does Not Speak its Psychological Significance
• Social-Psychological vs. Neurobiological levels of analysis…bridging for survey responses?
What Does It All Mean for Asking Survey Questions?
Well…we can’t fMRI everyone• It’s the Validity Thing: Knowing what we are
measuring even if it is measuring something partly or entirely different from what we think we are measuring
• What we’re measuring with many, if not most, public opinion/attitude questions is AFFECT
• Some prominent polling examples:
“Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?”
• “How-do-I-feel about him” heuristic activated automatically…telling R how much he/she likes or dislikes him [Lodge et al.]
• Respondent selects Approve or Disapprove to justify [unconscious] affective decision already made
• If asked why?...R will offer the most accessible, plausible, after-the-fact justification or rationalization—e.g., the economy/Gay marriage
Other Affect-Laden Questions and Affect-Driven Responses
• “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?”
• “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right--just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?
• Media Coverage: Provides Plausible, After-the Fact Justifications—e.g. “the Economy”
Take-Aways• Affective-Cognitive Neuroscience is “The
New Frontier” for fully understanding the Question & Answer process
• Most attitude survey questions appear to activate primarily affective neural networks
• Conscious cognitions & responses to survey questions are largely secondary by-products of unconscious, affective decisions already made by respondent…..epiphenomena?