Lee Sigelman

The Effects of Negative Political Advertisements: A Meta-Analytic Assessment

T he conventional wisdom about negative political advertisements holds that no one likes them, but they work, that is, they have the consequences their sponsors intend. Moreover, many analysts have expressed concern over the detrimental effects of such negativism on the American political system. We examine the accuracy of the conventional wisdom and the legitimacy of the fears about the consequences for the political system via meta-analysis, a systematic, quantitative review of the literature. The data do not support either contention. Negative political ads appear to be no more effective than positive ads and do not seem to have especially detrimental effects on the political system. Eleven subsidiary hypotheses about particular circumstances in which significant effects are likely to be found are tested and rejected. Discussion focuses on why negative political advertisements have become so popular in practice when there is so little evidence that they work especially well.

The Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Reassessment

The conventional wisdom about negative political campaigning holds that it works, i.e., it has the consequences its practitioners intend. Many observers also fear that negative campaigning has unintended but detrimental effects on the political system itself. An earlier meta-analytic assessment of the relevant literature found no reliable evidence for these claims, but since then the research literature has more than doubled in size and has greatly improved in quality. We reexamine this literature and find that the major conclusions from the earlier meta-analysis still hold. All told, the research literature does not bear out the idea that negative campaigning is an effective means of winning votes, even though it tends to be more memorable and stimulate knowledge about the campaign. Nor is there any reliable evidence that negative campaigning depresses voter turnout, though it does slightly lower feelings of political efficacy, trust in government, and possibly overall public mood.

Making Contact? Black-White Social Interaction in an Urban Setting

Although numerous studies have examined the consequences of social contact between black and white Americans, relatively little is known about the determinants of such contact. Drawing on a survey of residents of the Detroit area, this article probes to what extent and in what manner interracial contact (a) has changed over the past quarter century and (b) is shaped by propinquity and personal characteristics. Interracial contact is more common than it was during the late 1960s, specially for whites, but still consists primarily of brief, superficial encounters. For whites, the quantity and quality of contact with blacks are determined primarily by propinquity. For blacks, pace of residence matters less, and early childhood experiences matter more.

Partisanship, Blame Avoidance, and the Distribution of Legislative Pork

majority party advantage in the allocation of federal resources, a relation? ship seemingly at odds with the bipartisan support often enjoyed by distributive policies and pragrams. We reconcile this disjuncture by developing a partisan blame avoidance account of the distribution of legisla? tive pork. According to this account, the majority party inoculates itself against minority party charges of wasteful spending by including the minority in pork barrel coalitions. At the same time, the majority party, mindful of the electoral benefits of

The Nonvoting Voter in Voting Research

Postelection surveys consistently overestimate voter turnout by a substantial margin. This paper compares, via discriminant analysis of data from the 1978 National Election Study, the characteristics of respondents who falsely claim to have voted with the characteristics of actual voters and admitted nonvoters. More importantly, it undertakes two parallel analyses of the factors affecting voting or nonvoting. The first employs respondent-supplied voting data, and the second employs officially validated voting data. Even though misreporters differ in some respects from actual voters and admitted nonvoters, the parallel analyses in the latter part of the paper indicate that substantive conclusions about the factors that influence voting or nonvoting are largely unaffected by the use of validated as opposed to reported voting data.

Understanding the Tax Revolt: Eight Explanations

Numerous explanations of the tax revolt have been offered since Californias adoption of Proposition 13 in 1978. Unfortunately, many of these explanations remain untested or have been tested inappropriately, and the explanations are often jumbled together in a fashion that precludes theoretical clarity. We extract eight explanations from the literature, each of which assumes that the tax revolt is a systematic national phenomenon that is a function of individual-level social, economic, and political factors. Having tested these explanations by means of a discriminant analysis of data from the 1978 American National Election Study, we find little empirical corroboration for any of them. This leads us to consider two alternative research programs, one of which interprets the tax revolt within a symbolic politics framework.

Sexism, Racism, and Ageism in Voting Behavior: An Experimental Analysis

In order to assess the impact of candidate characteristics and candidate-voter similarity on voting preferences, descriptions of candidates were presented to 1,158 voters in a simulated mayoral election. Five experimental candidates-white female, black female, black male, young white male, and elderly white male-were pitted in two-candidate races against a middle-aged, white male opponent. Ageism in voting patterns was stronger overall than either sexism or racism. The hypothesis that similarity breeds attraction received strong support in the form of pro-female bias among women, pro-black bias among blacks, and pro-white male bias among white males.

Presidential Popularity and Presidential Elections: An Update and Extension

THIS paper updates and extends findings reported by Sigelman (1979), who discovered, contrary to earlier indications (Mueller, 1973), that the outcomes of presidential elections can be predicted with some accuracy on the basis of the presidents rating in the final preelection popularity poll. The 1980 election provides an additional case to work with-the eighth time an incumbent president has sought reelection since 1938, when the Gallup presidential popularity question was first asked-and it is of obvious interest to see how closely this most recent case fits into the pattern established earlier. We also bring three previously ignored cases (the 1952, 1960, and 1968 elections) into the analysis by shifting the dependent variable from votes for the incumbent president to votes for the candidate of the incumbent presidents party. This substitution is based on indications that presidential popularity has a powerful carryover effect on the outcome of midterm congressional elections (Tufte, 1975). If congressmen of the presidents party are held responsible for the incumbents performance, can we afford to overlook the possibility that the presidential candidate of the presidents party is also judged accordingly?

A Bird of a Different Feather? An Experimental Investigation of Physical Attractiveness and the Electability of Female Candidates

An experimental study assessed whether a female candidates chance of being elected would be affected by her physical attractiveness. Subjects read a biographical description of a candidate and were shown one of three differentially attractive photographs of her; all these materials, including the photos, depicted an actual candidate for Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court who had undergone a dramatic change in personal appearance. The candidate was also described as having highly feminine or masculine sex-role traits or androgynous traits, with subjects in a control condition receiving no such trait descriptions. Analysis revealed that even though the candidates physical attractiveness had no direct impact on her appeal to voters, it did exercise powerful indirect effects mediated by her perceived femininity, dynamism, niceness and age.

Why Is Research on the Effects of Negative Campaigning So Inconclusive? Understanding Citizens’ Perceptions of Negativity

Prior research has produced inconclusive results concerning the effects of negative campaigning. Researchers’ reliance on encyclopedic, even-handed measures of the tone of campaigns may help account for this inconsistency, for such measures are unlikely to reflect the way that most citizens process information about campaigns. Testing this argument by analyzing data from three 1998 gubernatorial campaigns, we observe a lack of consensus in citizens’ perceptions of these campaigns, a lack of convergence between citizens’ perceptions and social science-style classifications of these campaigns, and an array of biasing factors in citizens’ perceptions.