Annotation of Rutchick, Abraham M., Joshua M. Smyth, and Sara Konrath.

"Seeing
Red (And Blue): Effects Of Electoral College Depictions On Political Group
Perception." Analyses Of Social Issues & Public Policy 9.1 (2009): 269282. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
Origins of the blue/red depiction of the two main political parties.
The actual political viewpoints of Americans vary greatly.
How the smallest margin of victory is represented as a total victory.
The sociology behind the binary categorization of the states.
The exaggeration of small differences can quickly escalate to stereotypes and
biases.
By creating the polarized groups, the chance of compromise is lessened and that is
not beneficial to a two-house legislature.
The blue/red representation has grown past politics and now represents many
aspects of a persons life.
The blue/red also exaggerates the homogeneity in each state.
Blue/red distinction causes outsiders to view republicans from red states as more
conservative than they are and vice versa.
The blue/red hides the moderate states, disguising them as polarized to one
extreme.
Detailing the experiment to occur
Participants
The different maps shown to each groups
Preliminary setup for participants
Explaining what each participant is completing in their packets
They were then asked what they thought was the typical political view point in 4
states
Then participants were probed to see if any suspected the purpose of the packet
Methods of analysis of results to determine a conclusion
Analysis of the political scale ratings
Elaboration of findings
Role of minority parties in the participants