Living Up to Expectations: Public Attitudes Toward Congress

Abstract

Americans' feelings about the performance of Congress range across the spectrum from positive to negative, but tend to be negative What accounts for supportive or unsupportive orientations toward Congress? The effects of personal attributes like socioeconomic status, or beliefs about the efficacy of congressional processes, account for only part of citizens' evaluations of Congress We argue that discrepancies between what people expect Congress to be like and what they perceive it actually is like independently affect evaluations of Congress. We measure this "expectation-perception discrepancy" and demonstrate in a multivariate explanatory environment that this discrepancy affects the extent of Americans' favorableness toward Congress, drawing upon data gathered in a 1994 postelection survey (N = 808) conducted in Ohio by the Polimetrics Laboratory for Social and Political Research at Ohio State University.