Candidate Preference (candidate + preference)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

The Effects of Negativity and Motivated Information Processing During a Political Campaign

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 1 2006
Michael F. Meffert
This research investigated how voters select, process, are affected by, and recall political information in a dynamic campaign environment. It was hypothesized that voters' information selection, processing, and recall are subject to a negativity bias (i.e., negative information dominates over positive information), a congruency bias (i.e., positive information about the preferred candidate and negative information about the opponent candidate dominate over negative information about the preferred candidate and positive information about the opponent), and a candidate bias (i.e., information about the preferred candidate dominates over information about the opponent). Motivated by an initial candidate preference, participants were also expected to develop more polarized candidate evaluations over time. Participants were exposed to quickly changing information in the form of newspaper-style headlines on a dynamic, computer-based information board. The results generally supported negativity bias and candidate bias, whereas congruency bias was only found during information recall. At the information selection and processing stages, participants with a strong initial candidate preference showed a disproportionate preference for negative information about the preferred candidate. However, they developed more positive attitudes at the evaluation and recall stage. This finding suggests that participants were engaged in motivated information processing by counterarguing negative information about their preferred candidate. [source]

"I'm Not Prejudiced, but . . .": Compensatory Egalitarianism in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2010
Corinne Moss-Racusin
The historic 2008 Democratic presidential primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton posed a difficult choice for egalitarian White voters, and many commentators speculated that the election outcome would reflect pitting the effects of racism against sexism (Steinem, 2008). Because self-reported prejudices may be untrustworthy, we used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess White adults' (1) condemnation of prejudices, and (2) attitudes toward the candidates in relation to voting decisions, as part of an online survey. Results supported the proposed compensatory egalitarianism process, such that Whites' voting choice was consistent with their implicit candidate preference, but in an effort to remain egalitarian, participants compensated for this preference by automatically condemning prejudice toward the other candidate's group. Additional findings showed that this process was moderated by participants' ethnicity and level of prejudice, as expected. Specifically, compensatory egalitarianism occurred primarily among Whites and individuals low in explicit prejudice. Implications for candidate support, aversive racism theory, and implicit compensation processes are discussed. [source]

Implicit Race Attitudes Predicted Vote in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2009
Anthony G. Greenwald
In the week before the 2008 United States presidential election, 1,057 registered voters reported their choice between the principal contenders (John McCain and Barack Obama) and completed several measures that might predict their candidate preference, including two implicit and two self-report measures of racial preference for European Americans (Whites) relative to African Americans (Blacks) and measures of symbolic racism and political conservatism. Greater White preference on each of the four race attitude measures predicted intention to vote for McCain, the White candidate. The implicit race attitude measures (Implicit Association Test and Affect Misattribution Procedure) predicted vote choice independently of the self-report race attitude measures, and also independently of political conservatism and symbolic racism. These findings support construct validity of the implicit measures. [source]

Polls and Elections: Editorial Cartoons 2.0: The Effects of Digital Political Satire on Presidential Candidate Evaluations

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2008
JODY C. BAUMGARTNER
While the number of full-time editorial cartoonists has declined in the past few decades, several have taken their craft online in the form of animated Flash cartoons. In this article I test the effects of one of the more popular animated editorial cartoons on presidential candidate evaluations of 18- to 24-year-olds. A posttest-only experimental design was used to survey students from several universities in six states. The results from this online experiment suggest that these editorial cartoons have a negative effect on candidate evaluations. However, viewing the clip did not change candidate preferences and an analysis of the control group suggests that viewership of online humor may have a positive effect on political participation. [source]

Decoding the Signal Effects of Job Candidate Attraction to Corporate Social Practices

BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 2 2010
SARAH SORENSON
ABSTRACT This article seeks to go beyond the implied assumption from previous research that job candidate attraction to corporate social practices is equivalent across individuals. To this end, we propose a framework for categorizing individuals' attraction to different corporate social performance profiles. Our framework is grounded in relational models theory and Mitroff's model of managers' "ideal organizations." An inductive approach was used to elaborate upon the model and assess the extent to which candidates preferences vary. Data were collected from prospective job seekers regarding their attraction to social practices that benefit or harm various stakeholders, and these responses were used to develop profiles of job candidates' attraction to distinct profiles of organizations' social practices. The results provide a guide for managers who wish to improve the likelihood that an organization's social practices reflect what is best about its culture. [source]