Research by Laura Hussey, an associate professor of political science, and Geoffrey Layman, a professor of political science at University of Notre Dame, was the focus of a recent article published in The Christian Post about voting habits of Catholics. In their research, Hussey and Layman found that a minority of Catholics were both pro-life and pro-welfare, and those that were showed little ambivalence in their vote choice.
The following is an excerpt from the article which explains the reasoning for this that Hussey found from her research: “One reason, Hussey and Laymen found, is that PW/PL Catholics incorrectly assume that the Democratic candidates they vote for are pro-life. Forty-three percent of PW/PL Catholics believed a pro-choice Democratic candidate was pro-life, which was much higher than the rate of misperception among other Catholics. Hussey described the misperception as a psychological coping strategy to deal with the cognitive dissonance that results from being PW/PL.”
“Pro-life, pro-welfare Catholics generally seem to deal with this dissonance by projecting their church’s [views on abortion], which also happens to be their own view … onto their candidate of choice,” Hussey said during a recent panel presentation in which she presented her research. These Catholics are “not agonizing” about their vote choice, she added, because their “policy knowledge of politicians is pretty inaccurate.”
To read more about Hussey’s research and to read the full article titled, “Why Do Many Pro-Life Catholics Vote Democrat?” click here.
Tags: CAHSS, PoliticalScience
