Examining Candidate Information Search Processes: The Impact of Processing Goals and Sophistication

An experiment investigated how 4 different information-processing goals, varying on the dimensions of effortful vs. effortless and impression-driven vs. non-impression-driven processing, and individual difference in political sophistication affect the depth at which people process candidate information and their decision-making strategies. The results showed that subjects with the goal of memorizing information (effortful and non-impression-driven processing) conducted the deepest information search by accessing the largest amount of information and spending the longest time on searching information, followed by those with the goal of carefully evaluating candidates (effortful and impression-driven processing). Moreover, political sophisticates were found to process information more efficiently and be more likely to adopt noncompensatory decision rules than were nonsophisticates, particularly when effortful processing was involved.