Do negative messages work? The impact of negativity on citizens' evaluations of candidates

American Politics Research

Volumn 32, Issue 5, 2004, Pages 570-605

  Fridkin, Kim Leslie ^a,b   Kenney, Patrick J ^a,c  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF IOWA   (United States)

Author keywords

Candidate evaluations; Mudslinging; Negative campaigning; Senate elections

Indexed keywords

EID: 4243099339     PISSN: 1532673X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X03260834     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Able, O. G., Herrnson, P. S., Magleby, D. B., & Patterson, K. (2001). Are professional campaigns more negative? In P. S. Herrnson (Ed.), Playing hardball: Campaigning for the U.S. Congress. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
2. Abramowitz, A. I., & Segal, J. A. (1992). Senate elections. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
3. Alger, D. E. (1996). The media and politics (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
4. Ansolabehere, S., & Iyengar, S. (1995). Going negative: How political advertisements shrink and polarize the electorate. New York: Free Press.
5. Bargh, J. A. (1984). Automatic and conscious processing of social information. In R. S. Wyer Jr. & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Vol. 3, pp. 1-44), Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6. Bargh, J. A. (2001). The psychology of the mere. In J. A. Bargh & D. K. Apsley (Eds.), Unraveling the complexities of social life: A festschrift in honor of Robert B. Zajonc (pp. 25-38). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
7. Bargh, J. A., Chaiken, S., Govender, R., & Pratto, F. (1992). The generality of the automatic attitude activation effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 893-912.
8. Basil, M., Schooler, C., & Reeves, B. (1991). Positive and negative political advertising: Effectiveness of ads and perceptions of candidates. In F. Biocca (Ed.), Television and political advertising: Vol. 1. Psychological processes (pp. 245-262). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9. Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes and consequences. New York: McGraw-Hill.
10. Berkowitz, L., Jaffee, S., Jo, E., & Troccoli, B. T. (2001). On the correction of feeling-induced judgmental biases. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Feeling and thinking: The role of affect in social cognition (pp. 131-152). London: Cambridge University Press.
11. Brians, C., & Wattenberg, M. (1996). Campaign issue knowledge and salience: Comparing reception from TV commercials, TV news and newspapers. American Journal of Political Science, 40, 172-193.
12. Campbell, J. E., & Sumners, J. A. (1990). Presidential coattails in Senate elections. American Political Science Review, 84, 513-524.
13. Converse, P. E. (1964). Nature of belief systems in mass publics. In D. Apter (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 206-261). New York: Free Press.
14. Delli Carpini, M. X., & Keeter, S. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
15. Ferejohn, J. A., & Calvert, R. L. (1984). Presidential coattails in historical perspective. American Journal of Political Science, 28, 127-146.
16. Fiske, S. T. (1980). Attention and weight in person perception: The impact of negative and extreme behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 889-906.
17. Fox, R. L. (1997). Gender dynamics in congressional elections. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
18. Franklin, C. H. (1991). Eschewing obfuscation? Campaigns and the perceptions of U.S. Senate incumbents. American Political Science Review, 85, 1193-1214.
19. Freedman, P., & Goldstein, K. M. (1999). Measuring media exposure and the effects of negative campaign ads. American Journal of Political Science, 43(4), 1189-1208.
20. Goldstein, K. M., & Freedman, P. (2000). New evidence for new arguments: Money and advertising in the 1996 Senate elections. Journal of Politics, 62(4), 1087-1109.
21. Goldstein, K. M., Krasno, J. S., Bradford, L., & Seltz, D. E. (2001). Going negative: Attack advertising in the 1998 elections. In Paul S. Herrnson (Ed.), Playing hardball: Campaigning for the U.S. Congress (pp. 92-107). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
22. Haddock, G., & Zanna, M. P. (1997). Impact of negative advertising on evaluations of political candidates: The 1993 Canadian federal election. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 77, 329-343.
23. Hamilton, D. L., & Zanna, M. P. (1974). Context effects in impression formation: Changes in connotative meaning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 649-654.
24. Holman, C. B., & McCloughlin, L. P. (2001). Buying time, 2000. New York: New York University School of Law, Brennan Center for Justice.
25. Itp, T. A., Larsen, J. T., Smith, N. K., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 887-900.
26. Jacobson, G. C. (2001). The politics of congressional elections. New York: Longman.
27. Jamieson, K. H. (2000). Everything you thinkyou know about politics - And why you're wrong. New York: Basic Books.
28. Johnson-Cartee, K. S., & Copeland, G. (1989). Southern voters' reaction to negative political ads in 1986 election. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 188-193, 196.
29. Kahn, K.F. (1996). The political consequences of being a woman. New York: Columbia University Press.
30. Kahn, K. F., & Geer, J. G. (1994). Creating impressions: An experimental investigation of the effectiveness of television advertising. Political Behavior, 16, 93-115.
31. Kahn, K. F., & Kenney, P. J. (1999a). Do negative campaigns mobilize or suppress turnout? Clarifying the relationship between negativity and participation. American Political Science Review, 93, 877-890.
32. Kahn, K. F., & Kenney, P. J. (1999b). The spectacle of U.S. Senate campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
33. Kahn, K. F., & Kenney, P. J. (2000). Negative advertising and an informed electorate: How negative campaigning enhances learning during Senate elections. In J. Thurber (Ed.), Crowded airwaves: Campaign advertising in modem elections. Washington, DC: Brookings.
34. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1984). Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39, 341-350.
35. Kaid, L. (1997). Effects of television spots on images of Dole and Clinton. American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 1084-1094.
36. Kaid, L., & Boydston, J. (1987). An experimental study of the effectives of negative political commercials. Communication Quarterly, 35, 193-201.
37. Kernell, S. (1977). Presidential popularity and negative voting: An alternative explanation of midterm congressional decline of the president's party. American Political Science Review, 71, 44-66.
38. Krasno, J., & Seltz, D. E. (2000). Buying time: Television advertising in the 1998 congressional elections. New York: New York University School of Law, Brennan Center for Justice.
39. Lau, R. (1982). Negativity in person perception. Political Behavior, 4, 353-377.
40. Lau, R. (1985). Two explanations for negativity effects in political behavior. American Journal of Political Science, 29, 119-138.
41. Lau, R., & Pomper, G. M. (2002). Effectiveness of negative campaigning in U.S. Senate elections. American Journal of Political Science, 46, 47-66.
42. Lau, R., Sigelman, L., Heldman, C., & Babbitt, P. (1999). The effects of negative political advertisements: A meta-analytic assessment. American Political Science Review, 93, 851-876.
43. Lemert, J. B., Elliot, W. R., Bernstein, J. M., Rosenberg, W. L., & Nestvold, K. J. (1991). News verdicts, the debates, and presidential campaigns. New York: Praeger.
44. Markus, G. B., & Converse, P. E. (1979). A dynamic simultaneous equation model of electoral choice. American Political Science Review, 73, 1055-1070.
45. Martinez, M. D., & Delegal, T. (1990). The irrelevance of negative campaigns to political trust: Experimental and survey results. Political Communication and Persuasion, 7, 25-40.
46. McGraw, K. M., & Steenbergen, M. (1995). Pictures in the head: Memory representation of political candidates. In M. Lodge & K. M. McGraw (Eds.), Political judgment: Structure and process (pp. 15-42). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
47. Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with subopitimal and optimal stimulus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723-739.
48. Newhagen, J. E., & Reeves, B. (1991). Emotion and memory responses for negative political advertising: A study of television commercials used-in the 1988 presidential election. In F. Biocca (Ed.), Television and political advertising: Vol. 1. Psychological processes (pp. 197-220). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
49. Page, B. I., & Jones, C. (1979). Reciprocal effects of policy preferences, party loyalties and the vote. American Political Science Review, 73, 1071-1089.
50. Pinkleton, B. (1997). The effects of negative comparative advertising on candidate evaluations and advertising evaluations: An exploration. Journal of Advertising, 26, 19-29.
51. Pratto, F., & John, O. P. (1991). Automatic vigilance: The attention-grabbing power of negative social information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 380-391.
52. Roberts, M. (1995). Political advertising: Strategies for influence. In K. L. Kandall (Ed.), Presidential campaign discourse: Strategic communication problems (pp. 179-199). Albany: State University of New York Press.
53. Roddy, B. L., & Garramone, G. M. (1988). Appeals and strategies of negative political advertising. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 32, 415-427.
54. Shapiro, M. A., & Reiger, R. H. (1992). Comparing positive and negative political advertising on radio. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 133-145.
55. Sniderman, P. M., Brody, R. A., & Tetlock, P. E. (1991). Reasoning and choice: Explorations in political psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
56. Squire, P. (1989). Challengers in U.S. Senate elections. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 14, 531-547.
57. Squire, P. (1992). Challenger quality and voting behavior in U.S. Senate elections. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17, 247-264.
58. Squire, P., & Smith, E. R. A. N. (1996). A further examination of challenger quality in Senate elections. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 21, 235-248.
59. Stein, R. M. (1990). Economic voting for governor and U.S. senator: The electoral consequences of federalism. The Journal of Politics, 52, 29-53.
60. Sulkin, T. (2002). Explaining campaign intensity. American Politics Research, 29, 608-624.
61. Thorson, E., Christ, W. G., & Caywood, C. (1991). Selling candidates like tubes of toothpaste: Is the comparison apt? In F. Biocca (Ed.), Television and political advertising (Vol. 1, pp. 145-172). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
62. Thurber, J. A., & Nelson, C. J. (2000). Campaign warriors: Political consultants in elections. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.
63. Wattenberg, M., & Brians, C. (1999). Negative campaign advertising: Demobilizer or mobilizes American Political Science Review, 93, 877-890.
64. Westlye, M. C. (1991). Senate elections and campaign intensity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
65. Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 151-175.
66. Zaller, J. R. (1992). Nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.