Negative Political
Advertising and It Effect
onVoters' Behavior
By Amanda Fischer
Abstract
Introduction
Method
Results
Discussion
Bibliography
Relevant Links
Email me at Angel91782@yahoo.com
Abstract
How does negative political advertising affect voters'
perceptions of candidates? There is literature to suggest that "attack
politics" has an effect on how voters' view the candidate doing the attack
and the candidate being attacked. The literature says that voters use the
information and impressions they receive from negative advertising to make
their final decision at the polls (Roese & Sande, 1993). There is also
literature on the boomerang effect tate demonstrates that a candidate who
uses insults in his or her campaign receives fewer votes while the target
receives more (Jasperson & Fan, 2002). Fifty students (14 males, 36
females), ranging in ages from 18-22 were used as participants A Multivariate
analysis of variance (MANOVA) [3(condition)X 2(candidate)] was performed
on each individual trait. Significant differences in candidate perceptions
between the control group and the two experimental groups were found for
the characteristics of intelligence, likeability, credibility, charisma,
and integrity. An index for all of the personality traits of each candidate
was calculated and once again, a significant difference was found between
the control condition and the experimental conditions in which the conservative
candidate attacked the liberal candidate. One final MANOVA was done on
the index of each candidate's job related characteristics. No significant
difference was found, however a trend towards significance was found with
those in the experimental condition, finding the liberal candidate to be
more overall competent. These results supported the hypothesis that negative
political ads would effect how voters view candidates. The second part
of the hypothesis stated that when presented with negative political advertising,
voters would tend to vote for the target of the attack. Results did not
show this. However, it was found that voters were more decisive when there
were not negative advertising, which shows implications for future research.
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Introduction
When looking at how advertising affects voter habits,
several factors must be examined. How voters form an impression, what form
of communication they use to attain the information, and the techniques
candidates use to persuade voters all contribute to an individual making
a decision as he or she comes to the polls. These factors also play a role
in how voters behave and help to understand their habits when negative
advertising of candidates serves as a stimulus.
In this paper negative advertising is also referred
to as attack politics and negative campaign advertising. Attack politics
refers to campaigns that degrade and try to discredit opponents. The working
definition of negative political advertising will be any negative campaign
advertising attempting to discredit the opponent. Negative political advertising
is a source of considerable interest. Political attacks in the past have
been so severe, that many psychologists and political analysis have dedicated
a good deal of time researching this topic.
To understand the effect of negative advertising,
one must first look at how voters form their opinions of candidates in
general. Voters form impressions of where candidates stand on specific
issues. To relieve cognitive inconsistencies, they adjust candidates’ positions
to make those candidates that they like, agree with them and candidates
they dislike, disagree with them (Kenney, 1993). If this is true, then
voters may vote more for candidates they like personally than candidates
with whom they share common opinions. What is interesting is they may or
may not realize it. How voters form these personal impressions of candidates
is a crucial aspect of how they make their decisions. This raises the question
of whether it is more important for a candidate to promote his or her image
or promote his or her position on important issues.
The Yale Attitude Change Approach is also
an integral part of campaign advertising. First studied by Hovland, Janis,
& Kelley (1953), it focuses on "who said what to whom," using the factors
of who the communicator is, what he or she says, and who the audience is.
Another more recent model of persuasion is the elaboration
likelihood model (ELM) researched by Petty & Cacioppo (1986). It uses
two routes to understand attitude change. The first of these is the central
route, which takes place when people pay close attention to the arguments.
The second is the peripheral route, which occurs when people are not paying
close attention to the arguments, and are easily persuaded by surface characteristics
such as characteristics of the speaker. The ELM is an integral part to
understanding the effects of campaign advertising.
The ELM and Yale Attitude Change Approach both play
a role in a study done by Johnston & Kaid (2002). They looked at the
types of advertisements that are used by politicians during election campaigns.
They grouped them into the two categories of "image ads" which were intended
to humanize the candidate for the voters, and "issues ads" which intended
to show where a candidate stood on specific key issues. After studying
1,213 television ads from 13 US presidential elections, they found that
in issue advertisements candidates spoke for themselves and in image ads
there was an anonymous announcer speaking favorably about the candidate.
Here the Yale Attitude Change Approach and the ELM are utilized. The Yale
Attitude Change Approach is used in both instances. When the candidate
speaks for him or herself in issue ads he or she is saying what he or she
personally believes to the voters. When the candidate is spoken for in
the image ads rather than just by him or herself, it conveys that someone
else believes he or she is a good person and/or candidate so the audience
should as well. The use of the different narrator (the “who said it” part
of the Yale Attitude Change Approach) combined with the two different types
of messages (the “said what” part of the Yale Attitude Change Approach),
is what makes these commercials effective. Had a candidate boasted about
what a great man or woman he or she is, the voter would not be impacted
nearly as much, passing the advertisement off as merely a scheme for the
candidate to stroke his or her own ego. Had an unknown narrator discussed
what the candidate’s issues were, this may have instilled doubt in the
voter who may come to the conclusion that those views on the issues stated
were dictated to the candidate rather than decided upon by him or herself.
The ELM can also used to explain what is happening. By having someone else
proclaim how good a candidate is, the peripheral route may take place by
making it seem as though he or she is a good candidate. The narration is
a way of marketing the candidate in these instances just as a spokesman
marketing a breakfast cereal. If the voter is taken in by the strong
voice and tone of the narrator, whether it be the candidate or an unknown,
the voter is making an impression on the glamour of the commercial rather
than by facts. Had the voter been persuaded by facts, he or she would have
formed an opinion by means of the central route. The ELM is also important
when creating negative political ad. The factor of the narrator may be
taken into account in order to create the right quality of ad. By having
an anonymous narrator attack the opponent, it could shield the candidate
doing the attacking from any backlash effect.
How candidates use their image in advertising is
still an interesting factor to look at. To show voters an important aspect
of themselves, politicians often use topics dealing with rights and morals.
Domke, Shah, & Wackman (2000) found that emphasis by politicians and
news media on rights and morals in political debates do have an influence
on citizens’ evaluations of issues and candidates in political campaigning.
They also found that citizens tend to make attributions about candidates’
morality in terms of issues that are ethically charged. For example, abortion
and gun control are morally and ethically charged while health care, though
still an important issue, does not bring about the same intensity of a
moral or ethical questioning from voters (Domke, Shah & Wackman, 2000).
This concept of deciding what is ethical is important because citizens
also tend to make distinctions between candidates on the impression of
their integrity (Domke, Shah & Wackman, 2000). Furthermore, when such
issues are discussed within a context of what is moral and right, rather
than in an ambiguous context, individuals are more likely to interpret
that issue in an ethical manner. (Domke, Shah, & Wackman, 2000) This
type of advertising can inform voters on both what to think and how to
think. Also, when issues are presented in a context of what is moral and
right, individuals are more likely to make morality attributions about
the candidates. This information can be critical in predicting how a voter
will make his or her decision which shows how important advertising campaigns
can be. Negative political advertising often focuses on issues surrounding
morality (Domke, Shah, and Wackman, 2000).
Negative political advertising can effect voters.
Voters may use the information and impressions they receive from negative
advertising to make their final decision at the polls (Roese & Sande,
1993). Voters also feel negative political campaigning is less useful than
both comparative advertising (advertisements that compare two candidates)
and non-negative advertising (advertising that does not incorporate attack
politics) (Roese & Sande, 1993). In short, the more negative the advertising,
the less useful voters find it. They also view negative advertisement as
hard to trust, and the more negative a campaign is, the more negativity
a viewer has towards it (Pinkleton, Um, & Austin, 2002).
If a voter is turned off by a campaign, he or she
will like the candidate less and therefore be less likely to vote for him
or her. Negative advertising are interesting when examining how a voter
feels about campaigning while it is taking place. Usually a voter
views attack politics negatively (Schlenker & Britt, 1999). This is
not surprising, as people are likely to engage in impression management
to make themselves look as good as they possibly can in a situation when
they want to impress a large amount of people (Schlenker & Britt, 1999).
In this situation, to say that they enjoy watching conflict and seeing
what is typically dubbed as petty tactics is to make themselves seem immature
and mean. People who claim to be unaffected and impervious to such advertisements
may very well in fact behave and vote to the contrary. The bottom line
is that no matter how much a voter may try to give the impression that
he or she wants nothing to do with attack political campaigning, he or
she may very well participate in behavior that is affected by it (Meirick,
2002).
Attack Politics can also affect voter turnout. There
are three different views on this effect. The first by Ansolabehere, Iyengar,
Simon, & Valentino (1994) suggests that negative political advertising
is a deterrent for voters to come to the polls and demobilizes the electorate.
In contrast Goldstein & Freedman (2002) argue that attack political
campaigning stimulates voter turnout if anything, sparking interest in
the campaign. Lau & Pomper’s (2001) data say that these two ideas meet
half way, that whether negative political advertising affects voter turnout
depends on the level of negativity and aggression used.
Roese & Sande’s (1993) studied the effects of
negative political campaigning. Their results demonstrated that a candidate
who used insults in his campaigning received fewer votes while the target
received more.
The second study done by Jasperson & Fan (2002)
concerned the 1996 U.S. Senate race between Boschwitz and Wellstone. They
also found a boomerang effect on the attacker. Jasperson & Fan (2002)
point out a well known persuasion principle in that the more trustworthy
or credible a source is, the more persuasive the message the source is
trying to explain.
Finally a study done by Kaid (1997) showed much
different results from the previous two studies. Kaid cited the 1996 Presidential
race to be the most negative presidential campaign in the history of the
presidency. The topic of technologically manipulating television ads is
specifically discussed (Kaid, 1997). These distorted ads were used in 84%
of Clinton’s ads and 49% of Dole’s ads. Kaid found that most of these distortions
occurred in negative ads as reported by participants. The vote likelihood
increased significantly when using distorted ads as opposed to undistorted.
The results show that “the most costly, most negative, and most technologically
misleading political campaign in history" (p. 1090) succeeded in getting
enough votes to be in office. Her point here is that despite using negative
advertising, Clinton was still reelected into office, so negative advertising
did not hurt him.
To examine some of these effects
in more detail, this study was designed to address the effects negative
political advertisements have on voters’ attitudes towards candidates and
if it effects voter decision. According to the research, it is hypothesized
that attack politics should have an effect on voters’ attitudes towards
both the candidate doing the attack and the target. The candidate doing
the attacking will most likely be viewed more unfavorably than the candidate
being attacked. It is also hypothesized that the variable of voter decision
will yield results of participants voting for the candidate being attacked
rather than the candidate doing the attacking.
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Method
Participants
Participants were students taking an introductory course
in psychology for course credit. They were from a small, Catholic, Liberal
Arts college in New England. Fifty participants ranging in ages 18 to 22
were used. Fourteen were male while thirty-four were female.
Materials
A standard informed consent form which can be
found in Appendix A, was used. Participants were given a questionnaire
to assess their political background. It is titled the “Political Background
Questionnaire”. It asks questions about voting history, political ideology,
and means of acquiring political information.
Four political advertisements were used as stimuli. The advertisements
were created using information attained from the websites and pamphlets
of the Republican and Democratic candidates from the 2004 Senatorial race
in Pennsylvania and were made to look like advertisements that could be
found in a newspaper. All ads centered around the topic of education. The
first advertisement was for the democratic candidate, Joe Hoeffel who is
the challenger. It is a neutral ad in which he strictly discusses his views
on the topic. A second ad for Hoeffel was made in which he attacked Arlen
Specter, the republican incumbent, by comparing records. A third ad was
a neutral ad in which Specter’s views on the topic were laid out. A fourth
ad was made to be a negative ad in which Specter attacks Hoeffel through
comparison. In short each candidate has two ads: one neutral ad in which
he address his views on education and one negative ad in which he attacks
the other candidate through comparison. Each candidate’s neutral ad was
created to look similar to their opponent as were each candidate’s negative
ad. A post-stimuli questionnaire to assess any impressions they may have
made due to the advertisements was also used. A series of Likert scales
were used to assess impressions made in characteristics, for example, competency
and leadership abilities. Five of these were considered to be personality
characteristics and seven were considered to job related characteristics.
This questionnaire also asked about questions regarding the participants
impressions of the advertisements in general, which candidate they like
more, and for whom they would vote. The participants were also given a
post data questionnaire in which a manipulation check on the independent
variable is assessed. It used a Likert scale to assess just how negative
participants found the advertisement to be.
Procedure
Upon arrival, participants were given an informed
consent to sign. They were told that this study had to do with thoughts
on the senatorial race in Pennsylvania. Once each participant had finished
reading and signing the informed consent form, the Political Background
Questionnaire to assess political ideology was distributed and participants
were instructed that all the questions were straight forward, but should
they have a question to ask. They were also instructed to flip the questionnaire
over upon completion and wait patiently for everyone else to complete it.
Once all participants finished, they were each presented with a two of
the ads depending on which condition they were in. The control condition
showed both candidates’ neutral ads. The two experimental conditions are
counterbalanced so that one ad was one of the candidates’ neutral ad and
the other ad was the other candidates’ negative ad and reversed in the
other experimental condition. The participants were placed into their condition
based on the time for which they signed up. They had five minutes to read
through the two advertisements, and then they were collected. They were
then given a questionnaire to assess any impressions that may have formed
by viewing the stimuli. Finally, they were debriefed, given a chance to
ask any questions, given their credit and thanked for their participation.
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Results
Three Multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA) [3(condition-
liberal attacks on conservative; both neutral; conservative attacks on
liberal)X 2(candidate)] were conducted on the mean of the five traits having
to do with personality characteristics (attraction, likeability, trustworthiness,
open-mindedness, and charisma); the mean of the six traits having to do
with job related characteristics (competency, intelligence, leadership,
verbal ability credibility, and integrity); and the mean of all eleven
characteristics. Internal consistency was tested for the personality characteristics,
the job characteristics, and for all the characteristics. The alpha value
for both candidates personality characteristics was alpha=.8387. The alpha
value for both candidate’s job traits was alpha=.9011. The alpha value
for all eleven traits for both candidates was alpha=.9358. These three
scores show that the internal consistency of these variables was very good.
Then a series of MANOVAs were conducted to assess the influence of
each of the eleven individual traits, making up the dependent variables
from the post-stimuli questionnaire. A Chi Square was performed for the
dependent variable, for who the participants would vote.
To conduct a manipulation check, a test of within-subjects
contrasts measure was used. The manipulation check showed that ads meant
to be negative were perceived as more negative than neutral ads and ads
meant to be neutral were perceived to be less negative than negative ads
(F(1,47)=7.63, p=.008).
The MANOVA performed on the index for the personality
traits of each candidate revealed that a significant effect was found for
conditions (F(2,46)=2.08, p=.04). Post Hoc Tukey tests revealed that the
main effects were found between the control condition and the experimental
conditions. Another MANOVA was done on the index of each candidate's job
related characteristics. No significant effect was found for condition,
however a trend towards significance was found (F(1,43)=3.51, p=.06). Consistently,
all of the means of the condition in which Specter attacked Hoeffel were
higher than those of the condition in which both candidates presented neutral
advertisements.
A MANOVA was performed on each individual trait.
Significant differences in candidate perceptions between the control group
and the two experimental groups were found for the characteristics of intelligence
(F(2,47)=3.75, p=.03), likeability (F(2,47)=6.96, p=.02), credibility (F(2,47)=8.77p=.03),
charisma (F(1,4)=9.55, p=.02), and integrity (F(2,47=7.04, p=.04). Part
of the hypothesis that participants would create impressions of each candidate
due to the negativity of the advertisement was supported. The hypothesis
also stated that participants would rate the candidate more negatively
when they were doing the attacking than when they were not doing the attacking.
This was also supported because the means show participants tended to rate
the candidates higher when the candidate is not attacking than when the
candidates were doing the attacking.
The Chi Square on voter decision showed that there
is no significance. The hypothesis about this variable was that the candidate
being attacked would be voted for due to distrust of the candidate doing
the attacking. The hypothesis included that they would have more certainty
in the attack conditions than they would in the neutral conditions. The
frequencies, however, seem to show that voters had the most certainty as
to who to vote for when they were presented with both candidate’s neutral
ads. This does not support the hypothesis that the candidate being attacked
would be more likely to receive more votes than a candidate either not
being attacked or doing the attacking.
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Discussion
When presented with the negative advertisements, participants
were hypothesized to view the candidates in the attacking conditions differently
than how they viewed candidates in the neutral condition. The results of
this study confirmed this hypothesis. Pinkleton, Um, & Austin (2002)
found that voters find negative advertising hard to trust, and the more
negative a campaign is, the more negatively they will see the candidate.
In this study, it was expected that voters would view the candidates doing
the attacking more negatively and participants would rate them accordingly
in the post stimuli questionnaire, and that is what happened. Participants
as a whole rated the candidate doing the attacking more negatively than
the candidate being attacked.
A second hypothesis was that the candidate being
attacked would be more likely to receive votes than the candidate doing
the attacking. This hypothesis was not confirmed and, in fact just the
opposite effect was found. Participants tended to have the most certainty
about their decision when presented with neutral ads from both of the candidates.
Masterson & Biggers (1986) showed that when confronted with attack
political advertising, voters would be less likely to vote for the attacker.
Roese & Sande (1993) found that a candidate who uses insults in his
or her campaigning receive fewer votes while that target receives more.
Jasperson & Fan (1993) also suggested that voters would tend to vote
for the candidate being attacked due to the boomerang effect. These three
studies suggest that participants who viewed the negative advertising conditions
would have been more likely to vote for the candidate being attacked over
the candidate doing the attacking. The results of this study, however,
showed that participants had the most certainty as for whom to vote in
the neutral condition than either of the negative conditions. This may
be due to the demobilization effect which states that negative political
advertising discourages voters, especially Independents from participating
in elections (Ansolabehere, Iyengar, Simon, & Valentino, 1994). Participants
may have been so turned off by the negativity of the advertisements, that
they chose not to make a decision as a voter in a real life election would
choose to not vote.
Implications of this study can suggests applications
to real life political advertising campaigns. This study showed that negative
political advertising does effect voter behavior and did so using a small
sample of participants. This in itself shows that more research may and
probably will yield more knowledge about the impact of this ever growing
type of advertising on voters. The past few presidential campaigns have
incorporated attack politics in their advertising and the last two elections
have been extremely close. If attack politics continue to show an effect
on voters and if the precise ways in which this effect works can be found,
it is within the realm of possibility that it may change the outcome of
an election. The literature says that voters are more likely to vote for
candidates being attacked and less likely to vote for candidates who do
the attacking (Masterson & Briggers, 1986; Roese & Sande, 1993;
Jasperson & Fan, 2002).
Future research on this topic should examine the
impact of attack politics on voter turnout. Due to the time frame and logistics
of this project, voter turnout was not possible to study. The most that
could have been done in this area was to ask the participants if they would
be likely to vote in this election. The researcher decided not to include
this variable in this project due to the weak external validity of the
study. The researcher would want to measure if a participant voted and
not if the participant says he or she would vote. An interesting future
study would be if researchers conducted a longitudinal design and monitored
voters’ attitudes and opinions from the very beginning of a real life negative
political campaign through the election and the final outcome. Then they
would know for sure if attack political advertising would affect voter
turnout. Voter turnout in the United States would be an interesting variable
even if attack politics were not involved. Though it has gone up due to
the perceived importance of the most recent election, voter turnout is
still very poor in a country whose very basis is on freedom for all.
Future studies could also examine approval ratings of candidates who won
political office and see if there is a difference between a candidate who
won a campaign using attacking politics and a candidate who did not.
The methodology of this study was not perfect. Participants
were taken from a pool that was somewhat scarce. This pool also held very
little diversity as far as ethnic background and all participants were
from the same region of the country. Also, this study was conducted in
five sessions and used three different rooms. Two of the rooms were set
up like a standard classroom using desks in rows. One of the rooms was
set up with a conference table and crowded the ten participants more so
than in the two classrooms. This may have presented a confounding variable
in the presentation of the stimuli. Due to the overcrowding in this one
session, participants may have become agitated more so than in the other
conditions which could have affected their ratings.
Also when the researcher was creating the printed
advertisements, an original template of one of the candidates was used
and was the groundwork for constructing the other candidate’s ad. When
participants were asked to rate how well done they found each ad to be,
Hoeffel’s advertisements, the ones that were found as an original template,
were consistently found to be more well done than the other in all three
conditions. This may have created a confounding variable in that viewing
an advertisement that was done better facilitated information to be processed
better and may have been the cause of the decision instead of the negativity
of the ad. Using this study as a pilot study and replicating it in future
research without the confounding variables would probably yield interesting
results.
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Key Words: political advertising, negative advertising, social psychology,
political psychology
Relevant Links
Effectiveness
of Negative Political Advertising
Public
Perceptions of Negative Political Campaigns
The :30 Second Candidate
Eastern
Psychological Association
Social Psychology Network
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