Wojciech Cwalina

Towards the development of a cross‐cultural model of voter behavior

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reinterpret and test empirically Newmans model of voters choice behavior, where three elements influencing the choice of a given candidate were included: the medias role in the election; cognitive reasons to vote for; and emotional feelings toward the candidate.Design/methodology/approach – The data from Polish and US 2000 presidential elections have been analyzed and compared. The research purpose is concerned with the measurement of the models seven domains of political object evaluation (issues and policies, emotional feelings, candidate image, current events, social imagery and epistemic issues), and its predictive power for the choice of a presidential candidate. The data are analyzed using the methodology of structural equations modeling, and are interpreted with the terms of mutual causal relationships between these domains.Findings – The key factor in influencing voting behavior is evoking positive emotions towards the candidate and then providing vote...

Models of Voter Behavior in Traditional and Evolving Democracies

ABSTRACT The data of Polish, Slovenian, and U.S. political elections have been analyzed according to Newmans model of voters choice behavior (Newman & Sheth 1985; Newman 1999). The results of the research were interpreted with the methodology of structural equations, where cognitive domains, the media, and the emotional feelings toward the candidates were variables in mutual cause-and-effect relationships. The results of the analyses demonstrated the differences in the importance of the media for the election process. In established democracies like in the U.S. the media play an important role as independent means of delivering information, while in evolving democracies media are not independent and are oftentimes used by the competing political sides as an element in electoral battles. The article also presents proposals for studying voter behaviors within constructivist and realistic paradigms as well as some suggestions for marketing practice.

Political Marketing: Structural Models of Advertising Influence and Voter Behavior

Research on the influence of political advertising, the role of media, and the roles of affect and the cognitive organization of political reality in controlling voter behavior often overlooks a fundamental regularity in human behavior. Humans perceive political events in causal relationships. The image of a politician is related to peoples feelings toward him or her, and the two influence each other during the political advertising experience. The resulting mutual causal relationship determines a voters choice behavior, the perception of the function of the media in political campaigns, and the affect toward a politicians voting record. Such a causal analysis allows a test of two approaches by which voters organize political reality: the realist and constructivist. It also can be used for more detailed cross-cultural comparisons. This study analyzes these issues based on the sequential model of the influence of advertising on voting behaviors and the structural model of voters choice behavior in Poland and the United States.

Structural Models of Voter Behavior in the 2000 Polish Presidential Election

Abstract The data of the 2000 Polish presidential election have been analyzed according to Newman and Sheths model of voters choice behavior (1985). Although this model was originally interpreted within the statistical perspective of discriminant analysis, it could be also extended within the framework of structural equation methodology. Namely, if the seven cognitive domains (Issues and Policies, Emotional Feelings, Candidate Image, Current Events, Epistemic Issues, Social Imagery and Epistemic Issues) are assumed to be distinct and separate, they can be treated as independent (predictive) variables with the voters intention as a dependent or predicted variable. The three models were tested and the resuits of path analysis show the complex pattern of mutual interdependence between the cognitive domains and voter behavior. The specificity of the cause-effect relationship obtained by the structural equation methodology presented in the paper allows us to put forward some practical suggestions regarding the way electoral campaigns should be conducted.

Political Marketing in Evolving European Democracies

The dynamic development of Information Technology, resulting in the development of the Internet and new technologies used for wireless multimedia transmission which are increasingly available to ordinary people, is creating a new information society (see, e.g., Toffler, & Toffler, 1995). Such society implements what in recent decades has been the subject of laboratory research conducted within the constructivist paradigm of cognitive psychology. The constructivist approach was very well presented in Ulric Neisser’s classic work Cognitive Psychology (1967) and in the collection edited by Jerome Bruner Beyond the Information Given: Studies in the Psychology of Knowing (1973), where the authors analyzed in detail the psychological mechanisms of creating the representations of reality in the human mind. According to this approach, a man “goes beyond” the perceived stimuli, constructing, on the basis of them, his or her own world as a cognitive representation of the reality that surrounds him or her. Despite the fact that many precise empirical studies reveal the cognitive mechanisms of creating such a mental world, they have frequently been challenged. It is said that this world is the “laboratory world” and has little to do with the world in which one functions on an everyday basis. For instance, it is believed that the perceptual illusions

Voter Reactions to US Presidential Candidates’ Media Portrayals in 2004: comparing perceptions of Polish and American citizens

The 2004 US presidential campaign aroused a lot of interest all over the world, with media everywhere reporting in detail its developments. In Poland people paid a lot of attention to it. George W. Bush, popular since the beginning of his first presidential term, had started losing this popularity and aroused more and more dislike among Polish citizens. Despite this loss, the Poles still considered him as a better leader than John Kerry. Only among young people were these preferences reversed. This article presents the results of comparative research on the perception of the presidential candidates in Poland and the United States, showing different patterns of evaluating the candidates’ personal characteristics and attitudes toward them in research samples from Poland and the United States.

In Memory of Lynda Lee Kaid

Our first contacts with Lynda did not promise anything unusual. In 1994, she sent us a series of her articles that we needed for our MA and PhD seminars. We were beginning our academic research at ...