The impact of heuristics on political behavior*Egypt’s Morsi as
a case study
To what extent do heuristics impact political behavior?
Abstract:
This paper aims to answer to what extent do heuristics impact political
behavior, using Egypt’s Morsi as a case study, in the context of the
democratic 2012 Egyptian presidential elections, this thesis was
selected as it proves how cognitive shortcuts determine many of the
political decisions and behaviors an individual makes without an actual
pertinent thought process as opposed to a more typical optimal thought
process, as for the context, it was chosen, as the multitude of pledges,
ideological affiliation and personal character of Morsi makes the impact
of heuristics visible and helps put this impact in picture, this
research is significant in that, it explores the underlying cognitive
inner workings of the individual and to what extent that impacts
political behavior, as established: according to Stlowijk and Vis (2021)
“heuristics are cognitive shortcuts that facilitate judgments and
decision making”, current literature has not explored presidential
figures in depth, especially as case studies, which will be a power of
this research, such that it makes an applicable model out of this
specificity, with its strength lying in its capacity for historical
analysis, Finally, there will be a focus on representativeness,
deservingness and partisanship heuristic with themes relating to the
effect of heuristics on political behavior in citizens, elites and a
combination thereof.
Introduction:
This research presents the working hypothesis that “Heuristics greatly
impact political behavior, which occurred especially in Egypt, as a
result of perceived and imparted impressions, the laidback mental
process using the least mental energy along with the lack of proper
assessment between the parties in question and the situational
environment at hand” the first trial of democracy in Egypt provides a
context for this study and subsequent analysis, the dynamic between
citizens and the elite as will be expounded upon, form the process of
heuristics formation and the subsequent responsive and conclusive turn
of events, further the diverse range of heuristics used, make this
research special in its own right, it focuses on a middle eastern
country, the latter of which has not been researched of in previous
heuristics research as relating to politics, the importance of this
research is represented in its ability to show the dynamic between the
elites and citizens in the context of heuristics as a back and forth
genesis of said heuristics, the new field of heuristics in politics can
be further enriched through the consideration of case studies,
especially ones that use interviews to set the analysis and context in
motion, the importance of heuristics lies in showing how mental and
strategic processes are formed or optimized in politics, this is
especially of the essence in elections which take place in a short
almost emergency like timeframe, this research further shows the
possible avenues of connecting to other departments of managerial
nature, such as industrial engineering primarily, along with business
studies and psychology to a lesser extent, the complexities of these
process can be revealed and how they are exactly broken down and
manifested, “This paper will argue that heuristics greatly impact
political behavior especially as a result of the back and forth dynamic
between citizens and the elite along with usage of the least mental
effort as possible and assumptive thought process that leads to the
usage of heuristics, using Egypt as a case study”
Body:
Literature review:
According to Duval and Petry (2017)
many citizens are unable to properly assess the performance of
presidential candidates and lack the information along with extensive
interest so as to choose a candidate reasonably, but rather exhibit a
more random thought process along with being incompletely informed about
a political issue and use said process in place of informed decision
making, and while some might argue that differences in knowledge solely
contribute to the political behaviors of citizens, but a response to
this counterargument is that citizens might disregard information due to
ideologically motivated reasoning along with said heuristics worsening
decision making through misinformation that is produced through them,
additionally using heuristics related to trust or affiliation with party
ID might mislead citizens assessment of which pledges were fulfilled,
such that those viewing a candidate negatively might see his fulfilled
pledges as unfulfilled, while those who view him positively might find
the candidates unfulfilled pledges as fulfilled, as a result of bias
seemingly being a cognitive shortcut, the pledges themselves increase
the bias towards said candidate.
Moreover, it is according to Lau and Redlawsk (2001) that citizen’s
ignorance of much of political issues whether it be knowledge of
legislatures or political events, hinders the efficiency of the
democratic process, due to the usage of cognitive shortcuts through the
least effort, which explains how this ignorance came about, this pattern
could be observed when there is a lack of information and is applicable
to life in general, for example the party affiliation heuristic, is a
quick shortcut for voting, another is appearance which visualizes
identity and likableness and the emotions that this politician conveys,
another is ideology, which leads to assumptions for example on tax cuts
or tax raises, the reliance on this “schemata” and inferred logic or
expectations shows an important impact of heuristics on political
behavior, the use of heuristics have been shown to decrease the accuracy
of decision making in both knowledgeable and unknowledgeable citizens
who voted for stereotypical or non-stereotypical candidates, except in
the case of knowledgeable citizens who used heuristics for stereotypical
candidates that in contrast showed an increase in the quality and
accuracy of the decisions made, along with the usage of heuristics for
no stereotypical candidates by unknowledgeable voters, which seems to
increase efficiency as well.
According to Wang (2008) citizens are not that interested in gathering
information about political issues, and are more likely to estimate
political decisions such as voting through their emotions, this leads to
the prominence of the affect heuristic, that standardizes a political
attitude or decision in the mind of its beholder, said citizens use
affect heuristic when faced with too complex of a cognitive political
task, this heuristic is based on the amount of competency and warmth
they feel from a candidate for an example, these 2 criteria map out on 4
axis of feelings, pity, empathy, envy and admiration, the latter of
which seemed to have the highest prominence in determining political
choice, this is shown in a sample group’s voting John Kerry over George
Bush as a presidential candidate, in fact, this heuristic predicted the
winner before the results in the sample, and although a weakness lies in
the small size of the sample and correlation to this voting behavior
might be caused by something other than this heuristic along with the
mistake of using different heuristics on different groups, still the
high prediction and high description fit indicate that while caution
should be used, this heuristic is still of importance in determining
political behavior.
In regards to elites, Miler (2009) argues that elites sometimes
misinterpret the wishes of their constituents due to heuristics which
said elites employ to expect their constituent’s demands, this occurs
due to biases and incomplete information, and thus we see the effect of
the availability heuristic on political behavior, to this extent, an
important part of the research is that representatives, especially
congressional ones might misrepresent their constituents, it could be
said that decisions based on heuristics are definitely inefficient if
said elites would have decided otherwise with more knowledge, these
heuristics are more likely to come about as a result of the information
environment, which constrains representatives from identifying with and
understanding the large and varied numbers of constituents, frequency is
an important determiner of the accessibility of information, as
repetition increases the association of the constituents and the elite,
and the elite with the demand at hand, representatives are then
encouraged to seek a more thorough examination of their constituents
needs as opposed to reliance on freely recalled information, which would
lead representatives closer to the ideal of representing all their
constituents.
Furthermore, Stolwijk and Vis (2021) postulate that systematic biases
for elites stemming from heuristics can have a harmful impact on
representative democracy, said elites use the representativeness
heuristic which could cause biases to arise as a result of
generalizations, policy measures stemming from these generalization
might be unjust, harmful and problematic, time pressure seems to
contribute to the usage of this heuristic along with having staff who
are likeminded or with similar identities, who are likely to replicate
the same biases.
In relation to both citizens and elites, according to Colombo and
Steenbergen (2018) that if a decision is likely to be the same, then
being knowledgeable or not is of less importance in comparison to using
a heuristic, as it could save time and prove more optimal, yet,
heuristics can form out of biases and negatively contribute to the
political dynamic, for instance, heuristics identified with religion,
can lead to specific choices or choice of political parties, and thus
their standardization in the mind of the voter as the ‘religious party’,
or for example from their facial features ,such that political
competence is inferred from said criteria, cues could be sent for
example relating to endorsements from political elites such that voters
can shortcut their way into deciding without analyzing every part of the
process ,parties can send cues based on the partisanship heuristic to
advice voters through for example pamphlets or to use instructions
online on how to vote in local elections, this in turn leads the
constituent to vote for said party candidate using the same heuristic,
the disconfirmation and confirmation bias resulting from these choices
lead to misperceptions, this can send out wrong policy signals to elites
or party leaders specifically, who might associate their own opinion to
be closer to that of the partisan and vice-versa leading to a loop with
the party adopting unwanted policies.
Subsequently, it is argued by Fortunato and Stevenson (2016) that
senators who are more loyal to their parties principles are more likely
to be voted in by account of their constituents partisanship heuristic,
this comes in contrast with less loyal senators, constituents are also
more likely to draw inferences on their senators vote on bills if the
senator is more aligned with his party’s views, high interest voters are
more likely to be associating with their senator and predicting their
behavior, as opposed to their uninterested pears, but are less likely to
predict their senators behavior if they were to not hold party loyalty
on a bill, loyal senior and freshman senators have been found to have
the same rate of party loyalty in voting on bills, in any case, citizens
showed that the partisanship heuristic is a powerful tool in that it is
used unknowingly yet is correct most of the time, in that senators are
most likely to vote for their party’s policies, all this demonstrates
how cognitive processes are shaped by political context.
Lastly, according to Petersen (2015) Heuristics are an evolutionary
trait that helped our ancestors make decisions in their quasi-political
small communities and are a result of traits and decisions obtained from
the adaptation gained from past environments along with the reliance on
motivational systems for outputs of heuristics, the deservingness
heuristic for example in regards to welfare benefits show that receivers
of welfare are not considered deserving if they are perceived as lazy by
the public, while on the other hand are considered deserving if they are
perceived as having bad luck and previously contributing to society,
this dynamic influences how welfare plays in regarding ideology and
voting behavior, this could be also applied to candidates who might be
more likely to be elected if considered as deserving regardless of their
current merit or future plans and expectations.
Methodology:
Two interviews were conducted with two Egyptians with 10 questions
relating to Morsi’s Semblance, his pledges, character, persona, pathos,
competency, deservingness, how informed Egyptians were of campaign
pledges of that election, the role of bias in this dynamic, effect of
political party affiliation on both Morsi and the Citizens of Egypt
along with the dynamic of expectations and how that shapes and is shaped
by heuristics, these interviews were conducted in a qualitative
structured method in which interviewees would be given space to answer
the questions at hand in interviews that are approximately 45 minutes,
the first interview was mostly conducted in Arabic and transcribed into
English, it took place in a café, while the second, that of Yousef was
conducted in English, in a university campus studying hall, the
interviewees were chosen as based on their vast theoretical and
participatory or practical knowledge, the participants preferred not to
disclose more information.
Interviews:
Our first interviewee is Omar, he identifies 2 groups of people in
Egyptian society, those without critical thinking and those with
critical thinking, the latter is not influenced by propaganda, while the
former are very susceptible to influence, both groups make up 50 % of
Egyptian society, he also thinks that most societies have more of the
non-critical thinking groups, this manifests in the particular use of
the representativeness heuristic by those who are not critical thinkers,
since their guard is down they are more susceptible to be influenced
based on representativeness.
He adds that in terms of Morsi, critical thinkers found his campaign as
unrealistic, and that the ones without critical thinking were thinking
unrealistically and dreaming, and that in turn influenced their
political behavior, he continues that there are a lot of campaign
promises and because Morsi was seen as resembling all their ideas, they
were finding him as deserving, this forms in the way that said pledges
are more believable since Morsi seems to embody or resemble their
ideals.
Moreover, due to his insistence on religion and his resemblance to
religiosity or religion and its symbols, lead to him drawing religious
or fanatic people, and because the Islamic brotherhood already have an
image and reputation in society, as opposed to the advertising nature of
other parties, this made the Islamic brotherhood more successful, this
is how Morsi’s semblance, ideological affiliation and party
identification impacted voters in Egypt.
Regarding the degree of being informed or Knowledgeable of Egyptian
citizens of the candidates for election, he points out that besides
Morsi, since there was less discussion about Shafiq and other
candidates, that lead to less fame, while for Morsi the controversial
nature of the discussions around him basically gave Morsi free
advertisement and lead to his fame, as for Shafiq, since many predicted
that he would win, they did not try to vote for him nor cared to learn
about him or other candidates, this went in favor of Morsi and his
campaign.
While depending on the category of voters, in general, those belonging
to the irrational category, found Morsi to be welcoming, and looked up
to him, and found him to reflect competency and respectability based on
his previous line of work, that being an assistant professor in
California and later on a Professor in Egypt, he was the head of
Engineering department there.
In regards to political party affiliation and lean, Omar adds that no
matter the degree of importance of religion to an individual, a
religious individual will lean towards Morsi as the religious and
popular candidate, this manifests in Morsi’s political party’s
representation of said religious fervor, such that many, even those who
are religious but supportive of other parties would still chose Morsi as
the religious candidate, as they lean towards him, especially when
elections are between Shafiq the candidate that more closely represents
the older establishment and Morsi the religious candidate.
Additionally voters drawn to Morsi, might be even more influenced when
they hear of Morsi using past greatness as a way or pathos of convincing
others, thus his voters or those that lean towards his campaign, further
concede to said campaign, this is particularly evident, in Morsi’s
constant reminders of how great Egypt was and how he can help bring that
back, he would repeat how great Egypt was multiple times in a speech in
order to appeal to the masses, he would also put a lot of emotions
relating to pride, nostalgia and hope in relation to said reminders, he
would constantly call out for the average man and his issues, this
tactic seems to have drawn a lot of positive attention and traction to
him.
Morsi’s expectations of his constituent’s demands were impacted by
heuristics, in that Morsi’s campaign was shaped by religious and
practical (realpolitik) expectations, yet most of his voters later on
lead him on far too much, such that he became too confident in his
power, this later on lead to his downfall, he was used to being
powerful, to the extent that many people would believe anything he says,
this also helps explain how his expectations went against his
constituents demands.
Lastly, in regards to how Morsi’s extent of affiliation with his party
impacted the political behavior of his voters after the election, for
critical thinkers nothing changed, others found a change of heart to him
as a result of him being incompetent, along with not fulfilling his
promises, this was shaped by how far Morsi was drawing away from his
party, and how that created a further sense of alienation with Morsi,
from those who were hardline supporters of his party and its ideology,
seeing this incompetency and lack of promise fulfilment, supporters were
not finding compensation in these dealings.
Our second interviewee is Yousef, he explains that expectations are
important in regards to the heuristics of political behavior, as it
reflects the desires of people, this is especially true of Egypt which
came out of a revolution, in which afterwards Egyptians were hopeful of
rising back up, that hastened the expectations that were placed on
Morsi, they found that Morsi’s pledges cannot lead to immediate change.
In regards to deservingness and campaign pledges, Morsi’s pledges were
aimed to fix the things that others were scared to live through, after
the revolution against Mubarak, people did not try to know more about
his past life, the great pledges that were made in the campaign along
with said ignorance added to the pain of voters and made other factors
be as if obscure to them, markedly, heuristics as mentioned in the
beginning of the interview “impact political behavior in a massive and
important way”.
In regards to Morsi’s semblance, his ideological and party
presentation… categories of people in Egypt vary but are united,
this too is reflected in how Egyptians feel more warmth to candidates or
characters who are kind and good looking, along with candidates that
would follow their religion to a good degree as that shows that said
person is respectful to his religion and gathers his sincerity from it,
Morsi expected most voters to be supporters of his party, a trend or
expectation that would continue after his term finished, the people
thought him being religious would make his word more tangible, as for
the party, Yousef notes that the majority voted regardless of the party,
but rather they voted him as a man rather than the representative of his
party or maybe even as a representative of his campaign, as such he
showed himself as man not as a party.
In regards to how informed Egyptian citizens were of the candidates for
election, the two main candidates were the only ones that had proper
representation on social media, elections were remade just to settle the
vote between the two, indeed Morsi and Shafiq had similar structure in
regards to their campaign, yet the former went to the streets, he used
to answer questions and was more closer to the people, he had more
appearance in the streets as opposed to Shafiq, additionally, in general
Shafiq as a person and candidate was so dull and offered basic things,
he would pledge to increase bread production or would explain how
important the production of bread is, his propaganda was not meaningful
in general, it did not arouse strong feelings, one could say that Shafiq
was not qualified to make a campaign.
In regards to Morsi’s Persona, its welcomness and competence, his appeal
is very positive, he sounded really kind and impressive, and was really
warm, people felt comfortable and that would affect their political
behavior greatly, he was a kind and hopeful person, his positivity
seemed particularly distinguishable from other candidates, additionally,
in regards to party lean and affiliation, many choose to vote for a
party regardless of proper knowledge of the candidate, some leaned
towards Morsi as they are supportive of similar beliefs, so maybe it
effected voting behavior in this way, party identification was primarily
affected by ideological lean, and so those who voted for other Islamist
parties ended up voting for Morsi as an approximation of their beliefs
or the representation thereof.
In regards to the role of bias in this dynamic, a big portion of
Egyptian society as any society have biases, the rich for example
supported Shafiq especially against the poor, another case of bias would
be religion, such that Morsi would provide more religious change and
that would be completely different than the transitionary and old
establishment status quo.
Morsi was using Pathos to an extreme, to the extent that most of his
speeches were emotional, such that even when he was threatened by the
army, he still went out to make a speech instead of using his guards or
his supporters, he was constantly reminding that he is the rightful
president, he should have used something other than just pathos or even
manipulation, the influence of his pathos on creating votes covered
something along one fifth of his voters, Moreover, creativity with
showing love to the country is common to multiple presidential figures
around the world, such as Donald Trump in the U.S along with Mubarak and
later Al-Sisi of Egypt whom uses this tactic (Al-Sisi) to Justify what
he is doing, for example he would begin by describing how much he loves
Egypt and how great its history is, and then continue on by offering
debatable policies.
In regards to Morsi’s extent of affiliation with his party, and how that
impacted the political behavior of his voters after the election, in
most of Morsi’s decisions he had to go back to his party, affecting his
decision greatly, this was problematic and further exacerbated his
downfall, further, his incompetency should have not led him to be silent
against the army, but rather he should have used made him use his power
against the army and try to distance himself from the party.
Lastly, Yousef makes a point that Heuristics should not be followed by
elites, since every president wants to prove his success at some point,
at some point a president would want to do something regardless of real
knowledge, this is not only harmful in its own right but harmful to the
process of democracy ,heuristics should not be followed by elites, as a
lot of acceptance on a topic should lead the opinion of elites to go
properly in the direction of the people and to achieve said demands of
the people, heuristics would distort politicians understanding of their
citizens’ demands, that would go against the process of applying
democracy, democracy is about satisfying people, it supports the
representation of the diverse and multiple opinions of people in the
form of voting, this is especially important for Egypt as throughout its
history many people were removed forcefully, this is referred to as
“the curse of the rulers of Egypt” which started out in the 1200s and
had a general pattern or trend of assassinations and forceful removals,
Morsi or any other should have been only removed with elections, yet,
because of his weak decisions, the Egyptian people got irritated and
that led to his downfall.
Discussion and Findings:
The dissatisfaction that can result as a consequence of using heuristics
is evident our case study of Egypt, and as demonstrated in the
literature, over using heuristics can lead to the inefficiency or even
disruption of the democratic process as Lau and Redlawsk (2001) have
implied , which did occur as a result of Morsi not fulfilling his
pledges, this trend seems to be perceivable in the interviews of both of
our subjects who while having varying opinions, both establish that
Morsi’s downfall came as a result of people associating with him and
being impacted by heuristics, only for them to latter realize that the
campaign pledges which bound them seem to have not been achieved and
thus unbound themselves from it, in this sense those actors without
critical thinking as our first interviewee would describe them, found
themselves as one could infer, to tear apart the democracy that they
themselves help build, resulting in the downfall of Morsi and the
success of the non-democratic Egyptian military in taking hold of power.
Furthermore, Lau and Redlawsk (2001) have shown us that heuristics come
as a result of the least effort used as cognitive shortcuts, this theme
was of great prominence in that it plays a considerable and primary role
in the genesis of heuristics in the mind of the individual, this theme
is closely paralleled with the importance of expectations and
assumptions that our second interviewee spoke about, as reliance on
these expectations and assumptions greatly influences political
behavior, as result of them being an important generator of low effort
cognitive shortcuts….stereotypical candidates, which Morsi to a
great extent is a befitting example, lead to greater instances or
quantifications of heuristics generation, as in the opening of our
second interviewee, these expectations reflect the desires of citizens,
whose constant increase in the context of post-revolutionary Egypt
resulted in a great disappointment.
As Duval and Petry (2017) have shown us, the thee relating to
information about other candidates for both interviewees show that
indeed Egyptians in general used random thought processes and heuristics
to disregard other candidates as they were unaware of them, the
difference lies however, in that our first interviewee found Morsi not
to identify heavily with his party, while for our second interviewee,
Morsi kept identifying more and more with his party as time passed on,
the people in any case were evaluating Morsi not his party affiliation,
but rather their own party affiliation which aggregated to Morsi as the
representative of the religious political affiliations in general.
As Wang (2008) has shown us, both interviewees agree that the pathos and
emotions that Morsi exhibited in his speeches, how he constantly
reminded the people of Egyptian history, played well into the affect
heuristic, our second interviewee sensed a feeling of a paternal or
mentorship character from Morsi, which definitely impacted how he voted,
the trust that was felt from Morsi, was further fueled by the campaign
promises which signaled competency, together with those feelings that he
exhibited make the affect heuristic an impactful heuristic especially in
this case study, especially since the predictive powers of this
heuristic might manifest in generalizing this trend to the Egyptian
people.
Furthermore, as Miller (2009) has shown us, both interviewees agree that
Morsi perceived the people as susceptible to getting their demands
sidelined, and thus the great support which was fueled with excitement
and trust, led Morsi to be more laid back, our first interviewee frames
this situation as a result of the lack of critical thinking which seems
to imply that said lack of critical thinking led the people to be
blinded from the information in their surroundings, this too led Morsi
to misunderstand what his representatives want and in what way or order,
thus the availability heuristic here shows, how this dynamic further led
to finding no quick or alternative to Morsi, on the eve that they lost
democracy.
Likewise, as Stolwijk and Vis (2021) have shown us, our interviewees
found heuristics to be a great cause of biases, this can in Egypt’s case
be represented by Morsi trying to knock off the old establishment and
replace it with religious institutions, is based on his biases towards
the symbols of the old status quo, this shows how the heuristics related
to religious identification, led Morsi to think that he knew what
Egyptians wanted, and thus generalized without giving proper
understanding of the different demands, that one of our interviews
implies that Morsi should have covered the general common themes of
these demands
As for Colombo and Steenbergen (2018) along with Fortunato and Stevenson
(2016), our interviewees confirm that the appearance and guise of Morsi
really impacted the way citizens think about him, for our first
interviewee emotions overcame those without critical thinking, and led
them to associate Morsi’s character with religious symbols, and thus any
interested voter who finds religiosity to be important on a personal
level or identifies himself with the more successful Islamic
brotherhood, is using the partisanship heuristic to identify with the
political party that he finds to be representative of this standardized
mental image, as for our second interviewee he finds that citizens have
contemplated and associated Morsi based on his individual
characteristics and thus as mentioned that aggregated the vote to him,
as displaying religiosity gave rise to a feeling of trust in relation to
his perceived sincerity, a man of his word so to say, Morsi would go
more out in the street, ask his partisans about their demands, in
contrast to his more dull competition Shafiq who did not do the same,
thus Morsi forms stronger bonds of partisanship and shows himself to be
more representing of his people, political campaign and party; both
interviewees agreed that Shafiq represented the old status quo, which
those who were benefitting from, found no problem in maintaining the
status quo as opposed to the more representative more partisanship
adherent Morsi.
Lastly, in regards to deservingness heuristic, as Petersen (2015) has
shown us, our first interviewee leads us to infer that the
representation that voters felt from Morsi lead to their bias, which
subsequently lead to the assumption that Morsi deserves to be elected,
their unrealistic thought process lead them to take his campaign pledges
as a given, his promises were more believable for them as they were not
really critical thinkers, nor were they grounded in reality but rather a
dreamlike state, as for the second interviewee he explains how Morsi’s
pledges obscured much other details about Morsi’s life and capabilities,
the fear to return to Mubarak’s time certainly played in this dynamic
adding to the haziness and cloudiness of other details.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, heuristics do have a great impact on political behavior,
the numerous heuristics which were discussed such as the affect
heuristic, the representativeness heuristic, the partisanship and party
identification heuristic along with the deservingness heuristic and many
other, play into the decisions that both citizens and the elites take,
as discussed before heuristics should not be used not by citizens nor
elites to guide or influence their behavior, except in very rare cases
relating to great knowledge and interest in stereotypical candidates as
mentioned before, heuristics do detrimentally effect the democratic
process or the political process in general, expectations surprisingly
seemed to play into the formation of these thought processes, as for
political behavior, voting, ideology and the possibility of
rebelliousness or revolution, they are heavily impacted by heuristics,
the stereotypical characteristics of politicians initiate heuristics in
the mind of their observer, this can lead to inefficiencies in the
political processes of a country, most use heuristics unknowingly, being
unaware of said usage shows their danger, and the role they play in our
thought processes, these are applicable to the Egyptian case study ,in
any case the our case study showed how the usage of heuristics by both
Morsi and voters in general, came as a result of assumptions that lead
expectation to a disappointment, that in the end not only disrupted the
democratic process in Egypt but resulted in its complete collapse, the
usage of the least mental effort possible, hidden by complex
justifications, reduces the quality of political discussions and the
sharing of ideas, as mentioned, heuristics do impact political behavior
to a great extent.
Limitations and Recommendations:
Previous studies did not put focus on how heuristics are formed, as such
future studies should attempt to do so while using case studies to be
able to manipulate variables and to infer their results from multiple
case studies so as to be able to generalize trends and to expand more
upon the emerging field of heuristics in politics, as for this research
its limitation lies in its innovative abilities, which while of great
quality, could have included heuristics from other fields, so as to
test, compare and apply them, future researchers are also suggested to
expand upon said heuristics of other fields ad to incorporate them
within their research.
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