Presidential evaluations hinge on whatever considerations are most readily accessible in memory

Evidence

Equipped with our theory of priming, we believe that Reagan’s declining popularity can be explained, in part, by the conjunction of two facts: (1) the media’s newfound fascination with covert aid to the Contras and (2) the public’s opposition to intervention in Central America. According to the priming theory, when faced with a judgment or choice, people ordinarily do not take all plausible considerations into account, carefully examine and weigh all their implications, and then integrate them all into a summary decision. People typically forgo such exhaustive analysis and instead employ intuitive shortcuts and simple rules of thumb (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982). One such heuristic is to rely upon information that is most accessible in memory, information that comes to mind spontaneously and effortlessly when a judgment must be made (Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1980; Higgins & King, 1981; Taylor, 1982; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). When asked to evaluate a president’s performance, U.S. citizens generally focus only on the aspects of their knowledge that happen to be most accessible at the time of judgment. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1574

Categorization

• XREF: Very close to the ‘accessibility heuristic’ framing in Tversky & Kahneman’s work already on the shelf; also reinforces the book’s repetition of agenda-setting logic.