TY - JOUR
T1 - Bad for men, better for women
T2 - The impact of stereotypes during negative campaigns
AU - Fridkin, Kim
AU - Kenney, Patrick
AU - Woodall, Gina Serignese
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2009/3
Y1 - 2009/3
N2 - In this paper, we examine whether the impact of negative advertising on citizens' evaluations of candidates depends on the gender of the candidates. Given common gender stereotypes, we expect negative campaigning aimed at women candidates will affect citizens differently than negative campaigning against male candidates. The results of our study, derived from a survey experiment conducted on a nationwide sample of more than 700 citizens, demonstrate that negative commercials are less effective at depressing evaluations of woman candidates, compared to male candidates. The findings are consistent and strong, across a range of forces that people use to assess competing candidates (i.e., affect and trait evaluations, people's beliefs about issues, anticipated vote choice). The tight control of the experimental design, including randomization of respondents into different conditions that vary in only one way, demonstrates that the gender of the candidate influences people's reactions to different types of negative commercials.
AB - In this paper, we examine whether the impact of negative advertising on citizens' evaluations of candidates depends on the gender of the candidates. Given common gender stereotypes, we expect negative campaigning aimed at women candidates will affect citizens differently than negative campaigning against male candidates. The results of our study, derived from a survey experiment conducted on a nationwide sample of more than 700 citizens, demonstrate that negative commercials are less effective at depressing evaluations of woman candidates, compared to male candidates. The findings are consistent and strong, across a range of forces that people use to assess competing candidates (i.e., affect and trait evaluations, people's beliefs about issues, anticipated vote choice). The tight control of the experimental design, including randomization of respondents into different conditions that vary in only one way, demonstrates that the gender of the candidate influences people's reactions to different types of negative commercials.
KW - Gender stereotypes
KW - Negative campaigning
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U2 - 10.1007/s11109-008-9065-x
DO - 10.1007/s11109-008-9065-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:61349153074
SN - 0190-9320
VL - 31
SP - 53
EP - 77
JO - Political Behavior
JF - Political Behavior
IS - 1
ER -