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Are Confident Partisans Disloyal? The Role of Defensive Confidence in Party Defection
Author(s) -
ALBARRACÍN JULIA,
WANG WEI,
ALBARRACIN DOLORES
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00896.x
Subject(s) - politics , psychology , social psychology , ethnic group , government (linguistics) , political science , law , linguistics , philosophy
People who feel comfortable defending their views—defensively confident—may also eventually change those views and corresponding behaviors. National Election Studies surveys showed that defensive confidence predicted defection in the 2006 U.S. House elections, above and beyond the impact of various demographic and political variables. Moreover, defensive confidence was also associated with political knowledge and attention to politics and government affairs, but not attention to the news. Finally, males, more educated citizens, ethnic minorities, and older respondents had higher reported defensive confidence than did females, less educated citizens, European Americans, and younger respondents. Defensive confidence may be a crucial factor for a deeper understanding of political behavior.