Cognitive assimilation-contrast effects among partisan identifiers: An analysis of the 1993 Canadian national election

The electoral debut of the Reform Party and Bloc Quebecois allows for an examination of the character and role of party identification in political cognition in a manner not previously available to researchers. Campbell and colleagues (1960) American Voter presented a psychological basis for understanding individual-level voting behaviour, where party identification affects the vote choice directly and acts as a perceptual screen where the screening function distorts perceptions of political objects that are inconsistent with the citizen\u27s existing political attitudes. The findings of this study are largely consistent with the notion that, among those who acknowledge an association with a major political party, partisan identification appears to be an important structure around which political cognition is organized. Data from the 1993 Canadian election show that the stronger one\u27s positive ratings of one\u27s own leader, party and local candidate the stronger the negative ratings of rival objects. In addition, this tendency to contrast one\u27s own objects relative to the opposition intensifies as partisan identity intensifies