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I've always found it interesting that most people have really strong opinions on complex political questions to begin with.

For example, as a programmer, how do I know what the correct immigration level should be? How should I know if we should intervene in Syria?

Even if I follow the news, a few articles and news clips really aren't going to give me enough information to make an educated decision.

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Based on Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, I would suggest that it is a case of substitution: We (often unconsciously) substitute a hard question for an easier question. In your examples, that might be: Did you have good experiences with immigrants? How do you feel about war more generally?

Those judgments aren't necessarily bad in themselves. For example, as a pacifist, I might be happy to err on the side of non-interventionism as long as the situation is sufficiently unclear.

These substitutions only really become problematic when we close ourselves to new data that might change our mind.

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