. As David Redlawsk has pointed out, rational choice theorists-supporters of the Homo economicus approach-have always given emotion short shrift, but advocates of the cognitive theories examined in Chapter 9 have traditionally downplayed this potent force as well : Perhaps because accurately measuring emotional response to political stimuli is very difficult, even political psychologists not necessarily working in the rational choice tradition turned first to the tools of cognitive psychology to understand how people process political information.