Summary of Funk and Garcia-Monet: The relationship between personal and national concerns in public perceptions about the economy -- Adam Brown, BYU Political Science

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Funk and Garcia-Monet: The relationship between personal and national concerns in public perceptions about the economy

Disclaimer. Don't rely on these old notes in lieu of reading the literature, but they can jog your memory. As a grad student long ago, my peers and I collaborated to write and exchange summaries of political science research. I posted them to a wiki-style website. "Wikisum" is now dead but archived here. I cannot vouch for these notes' accuracy, nor can I say who wrote them.

Funk and Garcia-Monet. 1997. The relationship between personal and national concerns in public perceptions about the economy. Political Research Quarterly 50 (June): 317-342.

In Brief

Who/what are they challenging? Economic self-interest as determinant of political decisions.
Question: Are the findings that show people voting sociotropically (rather than out of self-interest) really mistaking sociotropic-ness for indirect self-interest?
Data used: NES surveys 1990; 1992
Expectations based on Kinder and Kiewiet (1981): Pocketbook has less impact than sociotropic-ness in making political decisions.
All you need to know: We need an alternative explanation(s) for sociotropic voting. Indirect self-interest isn't enough.

Hypothesis	H1: "Relationship between national economic conditions and political evaluations reflects an indirect role of self-interest which operates through perceptions of national conditions" (336)	H2: Those who think government policy will affect their personal financial situation are more likely to judge the national economy based on personal economic perceptions.	H3: Personal experience should influence political judgements (presidential approval of economy). Tested where pocketbook effects most likely to be found (p.330)
IV(s)	personal economic experience	attribute personal financial success to government policy	personal economic experience
DV	Retrospective evaluations of national economy; Prospective evaluations of national economy	Judge national economy by personal economic perceptions	approval of presidential economic policy
Findings	Retrospective evaluations show some support of indirect self-interest model. Prospective: Personal expectations modestly influence expectations of the nation.	Mixed results. Some evidence that attribution leads to increased personal economic evaluation influence on national economic evaluations.	More support for indirect self-interest model than H1 or H2.

General Findings

Some support for indirect self-interest model, but not overwhelming. Retrospective judgements were particularly weak under the indirect self-interest model.
The findings were strongest for the presidential economic approval. This was expected as it is a "domain specific" measure.

Research by the same authors

Research on similar subjects

Brennan and Hamlin: Democratic devices and desires (5 shared tags)
Brodsky and Thompson: Ethos, public choice, and referendum voting (5 shared tags)
Chong, Citrin, and Conley: When self-interest matters (5 shared tags)
Finkel and Muller: Rational choice and the dynamics of collective political action (5 shared tags)
Goodin and Roberts: The ethical voter (5 shared tags)
Holt and Smith: A selective survey of experiments in political science (5 shared tags)
Kinder and Kiewiet: Sociotropic politics (5 shared tags)
Schlozman, Verba, and Brady: Participation's not a paradox (5 shared tags)

Tags

Funk, Carolyn (author) • Garcia-Monet, Patricia (author) • Political Theory • Self-Interest • Voting • Turnout • Prosocial Behavior

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