Survey Experiments on Candidate Religiosity, Political Attitudes, and Vote Choice

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremiah J. Castle ◽  
Geoffrey C. Layman ◽  
David E. Campbell ◽  
John C. Green
Keyword(s):  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Survey Experiments

scholarly journals Extreme Candidates as the Beneficent Spoiler? Range Effect in the Plurality Voting System

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin Horng-En Wang ◽  
Fang-Yu Chen
Keyword(s):  
Regression Models ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Range Effect ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Effect Theory ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Mainstream Party

How does the entrance of radical candidates influence election results? Conventional wisdom suggests that extreme candidates merely split the votes. Based on the range effect theory in cognitive psychology, we hypothesize that the entrance of an extreme candidate reframes the endpoints of the ideological spectrum among available candidates, which makes the moderate one on the same side to be perceived by the voters as even more moderate. Through two survey experiments in the United States and Taiwan, we provide empirical support for range effect in the vote choice in the plurality system. The results imply that a mainstream party can, even without changing its own manifesto, benefit from the entrance of its radical counterpart; it explains why the mainstream party may choose cooperation strategically. Our findings also challenge the assumption in regression models that the perceived ideological positions of candidates are independent of each other.

Continuities and changes in left–right orientations in new democracies: The cases of Croatia and Slovenia

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Jou
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Additional Dimension ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Established Democracies

The left–right schema has long been used in analyzing political cleavages in established democracies. This study applies the schema in a post-communist context by examining the structuring of political attitudes in Slovenia and Croatia. Findings from six public opinion surveys in each country during the 1990s demonstrate that left–right orientations in both countries are consistently influenced by religious beliefs, while an additional dimension focusing on democratization is found in Croatia. Economic issues did not constitute a significant axis of political competition. Changes and continuities in party locations and the basis of vote choice according to party supporters’ left–right placements are also discussed.

scholarly journals Motivated reasoning and policy information: politicians are more resistant to debiasing interventions than the general public

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIAN CHRISTENSEN ◽  
DONALD P. MOYNIHAN
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Policy Information

Abstract A growing body of evidence shows that politicians use motivated reasoning to fit evidence with prior beliefs. In this, they are not unlike other people. We use survey experiments to reaffirm prior work showing that politicians, like the public they represent, engage in motivated reasoning. However, we also show that politicians are more resistant to debiasing interventions than others. When required to justify their evaluations, politicians rely more on prior political attitudes and less on policy information, increasing the probability of erroneous decisions. The results raise the troubling implication that the specialized role of elected officials makes them more immune to the correction of biases, and in this way less representative of the voters they serve when they process policy information.

Racial Projections in Perspective: Public Reactions to Narratives about Rising Diversity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Morris Levy ◽  
Dowell Myers
Keyword(s):  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
First Century ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
White Majority ◽  
Demographic Context

Threatened reactions to news about the approach of a racial majority-minority society have profoundly influenced Americans’ political attitudes and electoral choices. Existing research casts these reactions as responses to changing demographic context. We argue instead that they are driven in large part by the dominant majority-minority narrative framing of most public discussion about rising racial diversity. This narrative assumes the long-run persistence of a white-nonwhite binary in which the growing number of Americans with both white and non-white parents are classified exclusively as non-white, irrespective of how they identify themselves. Alternative narratives that take stock of trends toward mixed-race marriage and multiracial identification also reflect demographic fundamentals projected by the Census Bureau and more realistically depict the country’s twenty-first century racial landscape. Using three survey experiments, we examine public reactions to alternative narratives about rising diversity. The standard majority-minority narrative evokes far more threat among whites than any other narrative. Alternative accounts that highlight multiracialism elicit decidedly positive reactions regardless of whether they foretell the persistence of a more diverse white majority. Non-white groups respond favorably to all narratives about rising diversity, irrespective of whether they include the conventional majority-minority framing.

The importance of attachment to an ideological group in multi-party systems: Evidence from Israel

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110444
Author(s):  
Odelia Oshri ◽  
Omer Yair ◽  
Leonie Huddy
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Partisan Identity

In this research, we examine the role of attachment to an ideological group as a source of stability in a volatile multi-party system. In two studies conducted in Israel ( N = 1320), we show that a multi-item Attachment to an Ideological Group (AIG) scale is strongly tied to vote choice and political engagement, and its effects are independent of, and more powerful than, issue-based ideology and partisan identity strength. Compared to individuals with a weak ideological attachment, those who score highly on the AIG scale are more likely to vote for a party from their ideological camp and participate in politics. Moreover, in two survey experiments, respondents high in AIG displayed stronger anger or enthusiasm—known harbingers of political action—in response to threat or reassurance to their ideological group’s status, attesting to a link between AIG and political engagement. Our findings underscore the importance of ideological group attachments in a volatile multi-party system.

scholarly journals American Voters Do Punish Overt Undemocratic Behavior at the Polls: Natural Experimental Evidence from the 2021 Insurrection of the U.S. Capitol

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam van Noort
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Random Digit Dialing ◽  
Random Digit ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The U.S

Existing research suggests that overt undemocratic behavior by elected officials is insufficiently punished by American voters to electorally discourage democratic backsliding. Evidence for this proposition comes primarily from hypothetical survey experiments with relatively weak treatments. I test this hypothesis using a natural experiment with a powerful treatment: Donald Trump's incitement of the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The insurrection was unexpected to the general public, did not coincide with other events that could plausibly affect public opinion, and occurred while Gallup was conducting a nationally representative survey using random digit dialing. Comparing vote choice intention among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, the insurrection occurred suggests that the insurrection caused a 10.8% decline in support for the Republican Party, and an 8.4% increase in support for the Democratic Party. Politicians interested in winning elections have strong incentives to avoid insurrection-like events from occurring.

What Can We Learn From Factorial Surveys About Human Behavior?

Methodology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Petzold ◽  
Tobias Wolbring
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Intended Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
High Level

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document