ABSTRACT Studies show that going negative does not always work in political campaigns, and yet ca... more ABSTRACT Studies show that going negative does not always work in political campaigns, and yet candidates and consultants are rational people whose experience has persuaded them that it can be a winning strategy under the right circumstances. As scholars continue to explore what those circumstances might be, recent work by Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen (2012), suggests that when a stimulus/cue prompts partisan ambivalence, motivated reasoning should vitiate and a focus on the substance of the frame should increase. Based on this logic, it follows that a campaign attack against one’s opponent will be more effective among voters who express a mix of positive and negative feelings toward the parties because they are more focused on the substance of the attack than those who are less ambivalent. The following study uses experimental data derived from a national Internet survey of registered voters to examine the effectiveness of both campaign attacks and candidates’ responses (rebuttals) to those attacks among subjects with varying levels of partisan ambivalence. Our results show that ambivalence plays an occasionally meaningful but inconsistent moderating role across a range of campaign scenarios, more so with attacks than with responses.
Research across disciplines, including political science, has embraced the idea that individuals ... more Research across disciplines, including political science, has embraced the idea that individuals often possess ambivalent attitudes, but there is considerable disagreement about how to measure this phenomenon. Determining an effective way of capturing such phenomena is important to our under-standing of politics and public opinion. The literature offers several meta-attitudinal and operative measures of ambivalence. I discuss strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches and con-duct a test of the relative construct validity of two meta-attitudinal and two operative measures of social welfare ambivalence using data from a statewide survey of Florida residents in 2004. The findings suggest that one of the operative measures that forces respondents to rate their positive and negative feelings separately performs better than any of the other approaches currently offered.
Two current members of the U.S. Supreme Court took their seats despite allegations of sexual hara... more Two current members of the U.S. Supreme Court took their seats despite allegations of sexual harassment (Clarence Thomas) and sexual assault (Brett Kavanaugh) leveled against them during their confirmation hearings. In each instance, the Senate vote was close and split mainly along party lines: Republicans for and Democrats against. Polls showed that a similar division existed among party supporters in the electorate. There are, however, differences among rank-and-file partisans that help shape their views on the issues raised by these two controversial appointments to the nation’s highest court. Using data from a national survey of registered voters, we examine the factors associated with citizens’ attitudes about the role of women in politics, the extent to which sexism is a problem in society, the recent avalanche of sexual harassment charges made against elected officials and other political (as well as entertainment, business, and academic) figures, and the #MeToo movement. We are particularly interested in whether a strong sense of partisan identity adds significantly to our understanding of people’s attitudes on these matters. In addition, our experimental evidence allows us to determine whether shared partisanship overrides other factors when an elected official from one’s own party is accused of sexual misbehavior.
Although academic research has yielded mixed results, candidates and consultants are rational peo... more Although academic research has yielded mixed results, candidates and consultants are rational people whose experience persuades them that “going negative” can be an effective campaign strategy under the right circumstances. And they are almost certainly right, even if their evidence is more anecdotal than systematic. This article considers whether the impact of negative ads is moderated by perceptions of issue ownership, a factor that is known to affect the candidate preferences of some voters. Focusing on the attitudes of those who identify with the party of the targeted candidate, we examine the changes in support and favorability induced by four policy-based attacks against a hypothetical congressional incumbent seeking reelection. Results from an Internet survey experiment suggest that attacks are somewhat more effective among target co-partisans who do not believe that their party is more competent to handle the issue in question, especially when that issue is salient to the individual.
Although there is evidence that negative advertising “works” at least some of the time, it has be... more Although there is evidence that negative advertising “works” at least some of the time, it has been suggested that going negative poses a special risk for female candidates because it violates expectations about appropriate behavior that are rooted in the traditional gender stereotypes still held by many voters. In this paper, we employ data from a survey experiment to examine gender differences in the effectiveness of one particular attack made by a challenger against an incumbent of the opposite sex in a hypothetical race for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our interest is not limited to the attack itself, however, but extends to the question of how candidates should respond when they are attacked and whether certain types of responses/rebuttals (including counterattacks) work better for men than they do for women, and vice versa, in terms of mitigating the damage inflicted by an initially successful negative ad. Overall, we find little support for the idea that the effectivene...
... Two communication strategies that will be examined are counterattack (favored by many, if not... more ... Two communication strategies that will be examined are counterattack (favored by many, if not most, consultants) and ... ads, neither justifications nor excuses appear to be used with much frequency in the real world; instead, what you see are candidates who answer ...
... Marissa Silber Grayson Department of Political Science Samford University 800 Lakeshore Drive... more ... Marissa Silber Grayson Department of Political Science Samford University 800 Lakeshore Drive Birmingham, AL 35229 mgrayson@samford.edu ... 1992; Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 1997; Goldstein and Freedman 2002; Franz et al. 2008), ...
We use the list-experiment methodology to address three questions raised by the presidential cand... more We use the list-experiment methodology to address three questions raised by the presidential candidacy and election of Barack Obama. First, to what degree did white voters hold feelings of racial antipathy toward blacks as a group in 2008? Second, were those feelings manifest in their response to Obama's candidacy and subsequent election as president? Third, to what degree did whites actually take pride in the nomination and election of an African American to the nation's highest office? Our analysis of four statewide surveys in Florida shows that few white voters were upset by Obama's electoral achievements, and many took some pride in his historic candidacy and election. Nevertheless, substantial racism still appears to linger in Florida.
Page 1. Research Notes Page 2. Political Discontent and Political Action STEPHEN C. CRAIG MICHAEL... more Page 1. Research Notes Page 2. Political Discontent and Political Action STEPHEN C. CRAIG MICHAEL A. MAGGIOTTO M,. ANY SCHOLARS BELIEVE that a political system cannot operate ef-fectively in the absence of some ...
This note examines the relationship between strength of partisanship and perceived partisan choic... more This note examines the relationship between strength of partisanship and perceived partisan choice during the period from 1964 to 1984. The concept of party identification as a shortcut to rationality1 implies that the adoption of partisanship should be easier and more meaningful when the parties present distinct alternatives on salient issues. For the prospective voter looking for a cue, partisanship will be useful only when the parties offer more than an echo of one another; if parties are perceived as being identical on the issues, partisanship serves no rational purpose and will only lead the individual into an irrational vote choice, or perhaps even an unwarranted trip to the polls.2 For the retrospective voter, partisanship will be of assistance only when the performances of the two parties in office produce substantially different results either for the individual voter or for the country as a whole.3 It is our contention that the American public does perceive increasingly meaningful differences between the Republicans and the Democrats but, in spite of this, the impact of partisanship is limited by other attitudes widely held among the citizenry.
Do political parties really matter? On its face, this is a simple question with a simple answer: ... more Do political parties really matter? On its face, this is a simple question with a simple answer: of course they do, though perhaps not as much as they should in a large representative democracy in which relatively few citizens actively participate in the political process apart from an occasional trip to the polls on election day. The main problem, however, is that parties in the latter half of the twentieth century matter a great deal less than they used to. They matter less to:
ABSTRACT Studies show that going negative does not always work in political campaigns, and yet ca... more ABSTRACT Studies show that going negative does not always work in political campaigns, and yet candidates and consultants are rational people whose experience has persuaded them that it can be a winning strategy under the right circumstances. As scholars continue to explore what those circumstances might be, recent work by Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen (2012), suggests that when a stimulus/cue prompts partisan ambivalence, motivated reasoning should vitiate and a focus on the substance of the frame should increase. Based on this logic, it follows that a campaign attack against one’s opponent will be more effective among voters who express a mix of positive and negative feelings toward the parties because they are more focused on the substance of the attack than those who are less ambivalent. The following study uses experimental data derived from a national Internet survey of registered voters to examine the effectiveness of both campaign attacks and candidates’ responses (rebuttals) to those attacks among subjects with varying levels of partisan ambivalence. Our results show that ambivalence plays an occasionally meaningful but inconsistent moderating role across a range of campaign scenarios, more so with attacks than with responses.
Research across disciplines, including political science, has embraced the idea that individuals ... more Research across disciplines, including political science, has embraced the idea that individuals often possess ambivalent attitudes, but there is considerable disagreement about how to measure this phenomenon. Determining an effective way of capturing such phenomena is important to our under-standing of politics and public opinion. The literature offers several meta-attitudinal and operative measures of ambivalence. I discuss strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches and con-duct a test of the relative construct validity of two meta-attitudinal and two operative measures of social welfare ambivalence using data from a statewide survey of Florida residents in 2004. The findings suggest that one of the operative measures that forces respondents to rate their positive and negative feelings separately performs better than any of the other approaches currently offered.
Two current members of the U.S. Supreme Court took their seats despite allegations of sexual hara... more Two current members of the U.S. Supreme Court took their seats despite allegations of sexual harassment (Clarence Thomas) and sexual assault (Brett Kavanaugh) leveled against them during their confirmation hearings. In each instance, the Senate vote was close and split mainly along party lines: Republicans for and Democrats against. Polls showed that a similar division existed among party supporters in the electorate. There are, however, differences among rank-and-file partisans that help shape their views on the issues raised by these two controversial appointments to the nation’s highest court. Using data from a national survey of registered voters, we examine the factors associated with citizens’ attitudes about the role of women in politics, the extent to which sexism is a problem in society, the recent avalanche of sexual harassment charges made against elected officials and other political (as well as entertainment, business, and academic) figures, and the #MeToo movement. We are particularly interested in whether a strong sense of partisan identity adds significantly to our understanding of people’s attitudes on these matters. In addition, our experimental evidence allows us to determine whether shared partisanship overrides other factors when an elected official from one’s own party is accused of sexual misbehavior.
Although academic research has yielded mixed results, candidates and consultants are rational peo... more Although academic research has yielded mixed results, candidates and consultants are rational people whose experience persuades them that “going negative” can be an effective campaign strategy under the right circumstances. And they are almost certainly right, even if their evidence is more anecdotal than systematic. This article considers whether the impact of negative ads is moderated by perceptions of issue ownership, a factor that is known to affect the candidate preferences of some voters. Focusing on the attitudes of those who identify with the party of the targeted candidate, we examine the changes in support and favorability induced by four policy-based attacks against a hypothetical congressional incumbent seeking reelection. Results from an Internet survey experiment suggest that attacks are somewhat more effective among target co-partisans who do not believe that their party is more competent to handle the issue in question, especially when that issue is salient to the individual.
Although there is evidence that negative advertising “works” at least some of the time, it has be... more Although there is evidence that negative advertising “works” at least some of the time, it has been suggested that going negative poses a special risk for female candidates because it violates expectations about appropriate behavior that are rooted in the traditional gender stereotypes still held by many voters. In this paper, we employ data from a survey experiment to examine gender differences in the effectiveness of one particular attack made by a challenger against an incumbent of the opposite sex in a hypothetical race for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our interest is not limited to the attack itself, however, but extends to the question of how candidates should respond when they are attacked and whether certain types of responses/rebuttals (including counterattacks) work better for men than they do for women, and vice versa, in terms of mitigating the damage inflicted by an initially successful negative ad. Overall, we find little support for the idea that the effectivene...
... Two communication strategies that will be examined are counterattack (favored by many, if not... more ... Two communication strategies that will be examined are counterattack (favored by many, if not most, consultants) and ... ads, neither justifications nor excuses appear to be used with much frequency in the real world; instead, what you see are candidates who answer ...
... Marissa Silber Grayson Department of Political Science Samford University 800 Lakeshore Drive... more ... Marissa Silber Grayson Department of Political Science Samford University 800 Lakeshore Drive Birmingham, AL 35229 mgrayson@samford.edu ... 1992; Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 1997; Goldstein and Freedman 2002; Franz et al. 2008), ...
We use the list-experiment methodology to address three questions raised by the presidential cand... more We use the list-experiment methodology to address three questions raised by the presidential candidacy and election of Barack Obama. First, to what degree did white voters hold feelings of racial antipathy toward blacks as a group in 2008? Second, were those feelings manifest in their response to Obama's candidacy and subsequent election as president? Third, to what degree did whites actually take pride in the nomination and election of an African American to the nation's highest office? Our analysis of four statewide surveys in Florida shows that few white voters were upset by Obama's electoral achievements, and many took some pride in his historic candidacy and election. Nevertheless, substantial racism still appears to linger in Florida.
Page 1. Research Notes Page 2. Political Discontent and Political Action STEPHEN C. CRAIG MICHAEL... more Page 1. Research Notes Page 2. Political Discontent and Political Action STEPHEN C. CRAIG MICHAEL A. MAGGIOTTO M,. ANY SCHOLARS BELIEVE that a political system cannot operate ef-fectively in the absence of some ...
This note examines the relationship between strength of partisanship and perceived partisan choic... more This note examines the relationship between strength of partisanship and perceived partisan choice during the period from 1964 to 1984. The concept of party identification as a shortcut to rationality1 implies that the adoption of partisanship should be easier and more meaningful when the parties present distinct alternatives on salient issues. For the prospective voter looking for a cue, partisanship will be useful only when the parties offer more than an echo of one another; if parties are perceived as being identical on the issues, partisanship serves no rational purpose and will only lead the individual into an irrational vote choice, or perhaps even an unwarranted trip to the polls.2 For the retrospective voter, partisanship will be of assistance only when the performances of the two parties in office produce substantially different results either for the individual voter or for the country as a whole.3 It is our contention that the American public does perceive increasingly meaningful differences between the Republicans and the Democrats but, in spite of this, the impact of partisanship is limited by other attitudes widely held among the citizenry.
Do political parties really matter? On its face, this is a simple question with a simple answer: ... more Do political parties really matter? On its face, this is a simple question with a simple answer: of course they do, though perhaps not as much as they should in a large representative democracy in which relatively few citizens actively participate in the political process apart from an occasional trip to the polls on election day. The main problem, however, is that parties in the latter half of the twentieth century matter a great deal less than they used to. They matter less to:
ASS BELIEF systems research has generated a great deal more heat than light over the past fifteen... more ASS BELIEF systems research has generated a great deal more heat than light over the past fifteen years or so. Where Philip Converse (1964) once found evidence suggesting that politics and political issues were remote from the concerns of citizens' everyday lives, more recent studies have discovered substantially higher levels of belief consistency (or constraint) and ideological thinking among the American public.1 Explosive events, emotional issues, and controversial appeals by candidates for political office during the 1960s and early 1970s apparently combined to produce a crystallization of opinion at the mass level, and a growing polarization of society into contending liberal and conservative camps. Although it was unclear whether the observed changes represented a temporary deviation from the more "normal" patterns described by Converse, or a durable shift toward ideological confrontation in American politics, revisionist scholars were able to agree on one important point, i.e., that ideological sophistication is, at least in part, a function of political context and not solely an attribute of the individual citizen.
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