Cognitive-era political psychology relies chiefly on natural-world data despite added lab experiments

Evidence

The need to depict complex cognition systems and processes in this third era is likely to require more use of manipulational laboratory experimentation (Lodge & Hamill, 1986; Beer, Healy, Sinclair, & Bourne, 1987; Masters & Sullivan, 1993) than did the first two eras, but most data will continue to be collected in the natural political world (Tetlock, 1993). The complexity of using these natural-world data to clarify the structure and operation of ideology will require increasing use of path analysis, structural equation modeling (Hurwitz & Peffley, 1987), and computer simulations (Ostrom, 1988). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 380