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This analysis studies how variation in individuals' motivation to form accurate judgments affects the process of political discussion. I use a small‐group experiment in which participants compete to elect the simulated candidate who best represents their true preferences. I manipulate economic incentives to control participants' accuracy motivations. The results show that accuracy‐motivated participants, compared to those with weaker accuracy goals, seek discussants with more expertise and a more diverse set of viewpoints, place greater emphasis on socially provided messages, and reduce emphasis on political predispositions. As a result of these differences, however, accuracy‐motivated participants rely more heavily on biased information. Hence, accuracy motivations do not produce more accurate judgments or better decisions. Although previous work on political discussion has largely ignored the role of motivations, these results suggest that accuracy motivations play an important but nuanced role in this process. Strengthened accuracy motivations increase individuals' exposure to political expertise and ideological diversity but also increase their potential to be misled.

A primary goal of congressional elections is to create a link between constituent opinion and representative behavior. Explanations of congressional campaign agendas, however, have focused on national measures of issue salience and ownership, ignoring opinion within districts. Moreover, no study has systematically assessed the relative influence of issue salience and ownership. This article seeks to address these gaps using several public opinion surveys and a content analysis of 2010 House campaign websites. The analysis demonstrates significant across-district variation in citizens' priorities and preferences, yet finds no discernible relationship between district opinion and campaign issue agendas. In contrast, the analysis suggests that campaign issue emphasis is positively associated with the issue's national salience and party ownership, but salience appears to be the stronger predictor. Together, the results suggest that the 2010 candidates used their campaign issue agendas to forge a national strategy, rather than emphasize identification with their constituents.

Individual-level studies of electoral turnout and vote choice have focused largely on personal attributes as explanatory variables. We argue that scholars should also consider the social network in which individuals are embedded, which may influence voting through variation in individuals' social proximity to elites. Our analysis rests on newly discovered historical records revealing the individual votes of all electors in the 1859 statewide elections in Alexandria, Virginia and the 1874 municipal elections in Newport, Kentucky, paired with archival work identifying the social relations of the cities' populations. We also replicate our core findings using survey data from a modern municipal election. We show that individuals more socially proximate to elites turn out at a higher rate and individuals more socially proximate to a given political party's elites vote disproportionately for that party. These results suggest an overlooked social component of voting and provide a rare nineteenth-century test of modern voting theories.

Valid comparisons of group scores on additive measures such as political knowledge scales require that the conditional response probabilities for individuals on the observed items be invariant across groups after controlling for their overall level of the latent trait of interest. Using a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis of knowledge items drawn from American National Election Studies, we find that the scales used in recent research are not sufficiently invariant for valid comparisons across a host of theoretically important grouping variables. We demonstrate that it is possible to construct valid invariant scales using a subset of items and show the impact of invariance by comparing results from the valid and invalid scales. We provide an analysis of differential item functioning based on grouping variables commonly used in political science research to explore the utility of each item in the construction of valid knowledge scales. An application of the VTT suggests it is more appropriate to conceive of these items as effects of a latent variable rather than cause or formative indicators. These results suggest that models attempting to explain apparent knowledge gaps between subgroups have been unsuccessful because previously constructed scales were validated by fiat.

Holding an unpopular position on an issue important to voters can endanger a candidate's electoral success. What is the candidate's best agenda-setting strategy? To focus on other issue positions congruent with the same ideological stereotype, shoring up support among like-minded voters? Or to "go maverick" by discussing some issues that signal liberal positions and some that signal conservative positions? Existing voting models suggest the answer depends on voter preferences, since going maverick should have symmetric effects-support among voters who agree with the candidate's positions will decrease, proportionally, as support increases among voters who disagree. We argue, however, that stereotype incongruence prompts these voters to process information differently, yielding asymmetric effects. We test our expectations experimentally, using a fictional candidate webpage to show how the benefits of going maverick can outweigh the costs. Adapted from the source document.