James Druckman, Northwestern University

Date: 

Friday, October 9, 2015, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

CGIS S050

Title: The Political Relevance of Irrelevant Events

Description: Do events irrelevant to politics affect citizens’ political opinions? A growing literature suggests that such events (e.g., athletic competitions, shark attacks) do in fact shape political preferences, raising concerns about citizen competence. We build on extant work by offering an explicit framework for studying these kinds of effects on preferences. Additionally, we employ a novel experimental test of irrelevent event effects in a real world setting: specifically, we explore the impact of the 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship game. We extend prior research by studying the game’s impact on multiple attitudes, emotions, and the likelihood of public declarations (via Facebook). We additionally investigate the durability of irrelevant event effects. We offer pointed evidence that irrelevant events can influence political and non-political attitudes, emotional responses, and public declarations. However, we also find that, when it comes to political attitudes, the irrelevant event effects appear to be short-lived. Just how often and under what conditions irrelevant events affect preference remains unclear (e.g., our empirical study has some unique features that we discuss). Accordingly, we conclude that, despite our demonstration of irrelevant event effects, it is premature to conclude such events play a substantial role in affecting citizens’ political opinions and behaviors.

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