Political Interest,Political Knowledge,and Evaluations of Political News Sources: Their Interplay in Producing Context Effects

Abstract

In a survey experiment, political interest reports declined when preceded by political knowledge questions. The effect was stronger among women and those of less education, income, and age. The effect was lessened when buffering knowledge from interest items were questions evaluating how well politicians and media keep one informed, where they could serve as excuses for cognitive dissonance. Placed before the knowledge items, however, the evaluations exacerbated rather than alleviated the effect. Findings point both to priming as a general explanation for context effects and to the limitation of priming as an explanation for specific effects.