The Perception of Ideological Distance
| Author | Donald Granberg,Thad A. Brown |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591299204500309 |
| Published date | 01 September 1992 |
| Date | 01 September 1992 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
THE
PERCEPTION
OF
IDEOLOGICAL
DISTANCE
DONALD
GRANBERG
and
THAD
A.
BROWN
Uniaersity
of
Missouri-Columbia
itizens
form
impressions
about
the
ideological
positions
of
par-
~
ties
and
candidates
(Converse
1966).
This
occurs
slowly
dur-
ing
political
socialization
and
more
rapidly
during
political
campaigns.
The
outcome
of
this
process
is
observed
in
election
studies
as
political
perceptions.
In
nearly
all
of
the
analyses
of
political
per-
ception,
the
focus
has
been
on
one
perception
at
a
time
(e.g.
Berelson,
Lazarsfeld,
and
McPhee
1954;
Sherrod
1972;
Granberg
and
Brent
1974;
Kinder
1978;
King
1978;
Conover
and
Feldman
1982;
Martinez
1988).’
This
limitation
ignores
the
relational
nature
of
perceptual
judg-
ments.
The
individual
citizen
generally
does
not
treat
the
positions
of
different
candidates
or
parties
as
discrete
matters.
Rather,
the
position
of
a
party
or
candidate
is
perceived
and
evaluated
simultaneously
in
relation
to
other
relevant
political
actors.2
2
Received:
November
7,
1989
Revision
Received:
June
19,
1991
Accepted
for
Publication:
July
8,
1991
NOTE:
Earlier
versions
of
this
article
were
presented
at
the
meetings
of
the
Swedish
Political
Science
Association
in
Umea
in
October
1989
and
the
Midwest
Political
Science
Association
in
Chicago
in
April
1990.
The
authors
wish
to
thank
Anne
Lawhorne,
Gregory
Johnson,
John
Petrocik,
Diane
Sainsbury,
Martin
Bennulf,
Folke
Johansson,
LeeAnn
Debo,
and
Patricia
Shanks
for
their
advice
and
assistance.
In
addition,
the
helpful
comments
of
the
anonymous
reviewers
are
gratefully
acknowledged.
The
British
and
U.S.
data
were
obtained
through
the
Inter-university
Consortium
for
Political
and
Social
Research
at
the
University
of
Michigan.
The
Dutch
data
were
provided
by
Cees
van
der
Eijk
of
the
University
of
Amsterdam,
and
the
Swedish
data
were
obtained
from
the
Swedish
Institute
of
Opinion
Research.
The
authors
are
solely
responsible
for
the
analyses
and
interpretation.
1
Some
of
the
exceptions
have
used
multidimensional
scaling
(e.g.,
Lund
1974;
Sher-
man
and
Ross
1972).
Multidimensional
scaling
may
be
useful
for
providing
a
descriptive
account
of
how
people
differentiate
a
set
of
political
stimuli
in
spatial
dimensions.
It
is
less
useful
in
formulating
or
testing
theories
of
political
percep-
tion.
Another
approach
is
found
in
the
relative
proximity
models
which
compute
the
distance
from
the
respondent’s
own
location
on an
issue
to
the
perceived
loca-
tion
of
a
candidate
or
party
on
the
same
issue
(Rabinowitz
1973).
2
Ottati,
Fishbein,
and
Middlestadt
(1988)
pointed
out
that
in
a
given
analysis,
more
than
one
perception
is
needed
to
deal
with
the
venerable
question
of
how
much
variance
in
perception
is
due
to
features
of
the
stimuli.
That
is,
if
one
is
inter-
ested
in
ascertaining
the
degree
to
which
perceptions
are
stimulus-determined
or
728
The
Gestalt
tradition
in
psychology,
with
its
emphasis
on
context
and
the
relational
nature
of
perception,
provides
a
rationale
for
con-
sidering
political
perceptions
in
relation
to
one
another.
Within
this
broad
tradition,
there
are
sound
theoretical
reasons
for
hypothesizing
a
U-shaped
function
between
self-placement
on
an
ideological
contin-
uum
and
the
amount
of
perceived
distance
between
the
political
alter-
natives
on
the
same
continuum.
Specifically,
social
judgment
theory
implies
that
people
at
or
near
the
extremes
will
pull
their
preferred
party
toward
themselves
while
simultaneously
pushing
their
nonprefer-
red
party
away
from
their
own
position.
These
psychological
tenden-
cies
to
pull
and
push
in
the
process
of
political
perception
are
referred
to
as
assimilation
and
contrast,
respectively
(Sherif and
Hovland
1961;
Whittaker
1967;
Granberg
1982).
Social
judgment
theory
is
largely
descriptive.
Beyond
document-
ing
the
occurrence
and
ubiquity
of
assimilation
and
contrast
effects,
the
theory
did
not
offer
much
by
way
of
explanation
as
to
why
these
effects
occur.
However,
Heider’s
balance
theory
provided
a
plausible
explanation
for
these
perceptual
distortions.
According
to
this
theory,
people
strive
to
minimize
the
distance
between
themselves
and
a
pre-
ferred
party
while
seeking
to
maximize
the
distance
from
a
nonprefer-
red
party
in
order
to
achieve,
maintain,
or
restore
a
sense
of
cognitive
balance
(Heider
1946,
1958).
If
such
effects
occur,
they
ought
to
pro-
duce
the
hypothesized
curvilinear
relationship.
Consider
the
case
of
a
two-party
system
in
which
the
actual
posi-
tions
of
the
two
parties
are
at
3
and
5
on
a
1-7
scale
going
from
extremely
liberal
to
extremely
conservative.
People
who
place
them-
selves
at
position
1
are
expected
to
pull
the
one
party
psychologically
toward
their
own
position
of
1
and
to
push
the
other
party
away
from
their
own
position
toward
7.
The
people
at
the
other
extreme
(7)
should
show
the
mirror
image
of
that.
People
who
place
themselves
at
positions
2
and
6
ought
to
show
a
similar
tendency
but
to
a
less
pronounced
degree.
In
the
perspective
of
balance
theory,
those
who
place
themselves
at
positions
3
or
5
would
have
no
reason
to
distort
the
position
of
their
preferred
party.
Finally,
people
who
place
themselves
in
the
center
at
position
4
should
perceive
the
least
distance
between
the
parties.
perceiver-determined
(McGrath
and
McGrath
1962;
Nimmo
and
Savage
1976;
Sigel
1964),
it
is
necessary
to
include
more
than
one
stimulus
and
more
than
one
perception
simultaneously
in
the
analysis.
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