COGNITIVE EFFICIENCY AND THE CONGRESSIONAL VOTE - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COATTAIL VOTING

Most recent studies of presidential coattails have attempted to specif y the prevalence of coattail voting. In contrast, in this treatment we attempt to identify the psychological mechanism underlying the coatta il effect. Our interpretation is that the coattail effect results from voters' reliance on a specific cognitive efficiency mechanism, heuris tic processing. Using NES data from the 1976-88 presidential elections , we conduct a multi-level analysis of factors influencing the congres sional vote choice. We find that coattail voting varies with attribute s of both the individual voter and of the electoral context. These res ults are consistent with our argument that voters with high need for c ognitive efficiency use their evaluations of presidential candidates a s cues to guide the decision regarding which House candidate to suppor t.