DO PEOPLE HAVE FEELINGS TOWARD LEADERS ABOUT WHOM THEY SAY THEY KNOW NOTHING?

POLITICIANS; RESPONDENTS; PUBLIC opinion polls; CANADIANS; SOCIAL surveys; POLITICAL parties; ATTITUDE (Psychology); POLITICAL science; PUBLIC opinion

Blais, André; Nevitte, Neil; Gidengil, Elisabeth; Nadeau, Richard

This article asserts that even people who say they know nothing about a leader have real feelings about that leader, and so their responses are meaningful but tentative. People who say that they do not know anything about a leader are the ones who do not follow politics closely and who are poorly informed about politics in general. To wit, people who are less educated, less informed, less exposed to media, and less interested in politics in general were more likely to say that they knew nothing about a leader. The study found out that despite feeling uninformed about a leader, people were willing and able to indicate how they felt about that person. The expectation is that people who identify with a party give the leader of their party higher ratings and that those who distrust politicians in general give all leaders lower ratings. There are many possibilities why people have feelings about leaders but feel uniformed about them. One possibility is that they feel they know very little, close to nothing, and that they think they are not informed enough to say that they know at least a little about the leader. A second possibility is that some of respondents who lack self-confidence may feel compelled to understate their level of political knowledge and to feign ignorance in order not to appear misinformed. A third possibility is that these people, while they do not know something about the leader, are unable to retrieve that piece of information at the time of the interview. The leader evaluations given by these people are based on their feelings about political parties. The practical implication of the study's findings are discussed.