'An Inherited Money Dude from Queens County': How Unseen Candidate Characteristics Affect Voter Perceptions
| Autor: | Jared McDonald, David Karol, Lilliana Mason |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Sociology and Political Science
media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Observational analysis Empathy Affect (psychology) 0506 political science Race (biology) Perception 0502 economics and business 050602 political science & public administration 050207 economics Social psychology media_common |
| Zdroj: | Political Behavior. 42:915-938 |
| ISSN: | 1573-6687 0190-9320 |
| Popis: | We examine the effect of biographical knowledge on voters’ assessments of leaders. Prior research has shown that voters infer traits from candidate characteristics such as race, gender and incumbency, which are visible to even poorly-informed voters. Given voters’ limited knowledge, we argue that less-visible attributes may be easily misperceived, possibly affecting overall assessments of candidates. Focusing on President Trump, we find via a national survey that many Americans are unaware that he was born into great wealth. This misperception increases support for Trump, mediated through beliefs that he is both empathetic and good at business. We supplement our observational analysis with an experiment treating respondents with information regarding the role Trump’s father played in his career. This information leads respondents to rate the president more negatively on both empathy and business ability. These findings suggest that correcting information about candidate characteristics can change the minds of even loyal partisans. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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