AABSS Conference February 14-15, 2013 Presentation Political Matters E. Hughes Shanks, PhD Candidate University of Nebraska Lincoln Calculations of Human Perceptions and Political Attentions

Attentions toward objects indicate the potential for individual consciousness to be drawn only in general contextual directions.

Political attitude objects possess characteristics drawing from potentially numerous contexts.

Individual political beliefs are maintained on a two- dimesional continuum where on one extreme there is high trust and comparatively more appeal and toward another extreme there is low trust and comparatively less appeal.

This dichotomy of appeals includes a middle ground where a battle for attention occurs because the uncertainty of democratic politics is rooted in the eventuality of scheduled conflict and also because of the availability of information.

When a person adopts the values of an ideology this demonstrates there is some immediately felt significance.

When a political environment presents clear choices the decisions made about whether to support or oppose an ideology reveal that political preferences are made based on an identifiable context.

This is also true when choices are not clear. What makes a political preference important is that individuals for some reason feel a need to express acceptance or rejection of something at a given point in time.

On one hand adopting certain values may be a necessity. On the other hand a preference can arise because of the attractiveness of associated values.

Necessity and attractiveness are based on qualities of relevant political content that can dictate the circumstances that require individuals to select preferences and declare support for values which may not represent how they really feel.

Put another way, political environments may encourage individuals to express preferences at the expense of values they might otherwise support.

The ability of a political force to actually move attitudes toward or away from objects depends on perceptions of the meaning of certain contextual components..

For example, the attentions leading up to emotional responses especially those leading up to divisive political issues need to be measured in order to detect what people are experiencing physically as they are exposed to political stimuli

It is more important to have established contextual surety to increase objective value of certain variables and then proceed with efforts to determine whether attentions are on attitude objects or some other relevant material.

It is not so necessary to identify any specific reaction.

Although affect is context dependent only effects tied to relevant material will aid investigations of meaning.

Reactions therefore are only indicators of broader meaning.

AABSS 2013 E. Hughes Shanks, PhD Candidate University of Nebraska Lincoln Calculations of Human Perceptions and Political Attentions