More Than Just a Channel to Political Knowledge: Four Effects of Reflection

• In Event: Influences on Political Knowledge and Learning

Abstract

Reflection, a process which makes sense of information by incorporating them into a structure, was previously believed to function mainly as an antecedent of political knowledge. In this paper, we operationalize reflection as writing down answers to reflection questions and argue that reflection works in a way more than leading to political knowledge. Results from a between-subjects online experiment (N = 168) covering two political issues, namely, fertility and immigration, showed that (a) reflection interacts with information access to influence perceived issue knowledge ; (b) reflection enhances attitude certainty, including perceived attitude clarity and perceived attitude correctness; (c) reflection interacts with information access to influence perceived national and local opinion climate; (d) reflection promotes willingness of opinion expression in private settings.

Authors

• Tian Yang, U of Pennsylvania

• weiyu zhang, National U of Singapore