In our paper we focus on political sophistication and the variations of its impact on public opinion caused when we vary its measurement. Political sophistication has been conceptualised as the amount and nature of the structure of citizens’ political cognition on the process of political behaviour. It has been found to have a profound effect on the mechanisms of information processing, storing and evaluation, decision-making and motivated reasoning but also emotional arousal. Nevertheless, due to the complexity of the construct, its empirical assessment has generated significant debates. Drawing upon the work of Luskin we put to test a number of measures of political sophistication (ideological self-identification, media exposure, attentiveness and interest in politics, attention to media and education) in Turkey. We use survey data drawn from the latest wave of the WVS to identify the differentiated effect of these components of political sophistication on the process of individual decision-making.
