A Different Kind of Disadvantage: Candidate Race, Cognitive Complexity, and Voter Choice

Abstract

Voters use heuristics to help them make decisions when they lack information about political choices. Candidate appearance operates as a powerful low-information cue. However, widely held stereotypes mean that reliance on such a heuristic can reduce support for candidates of color. We argue that racial prejudices are more likely to dominate decision making when electoral environments require voters to expend more cognitive resources -such as when they must choose multiple candidates at once. Using two experiments we find that black candidates receive less support from cognitively taxed voters than from voters who have the cognitive space to intentionally limit their prejudices when voting. We also reveal that this pattern is particularly evident among ideologically liberal voters. Respondents who profess politically liberal views support black candidates more often than white candidates when the cognitive task is simple but are less likely to do so when they are cognitively taxed.

Labels vs. Pictures: Treatment-Mode Effects in Experiments About Discrimination

“…This conjecture—if borne out—would have important implications for the burgeoning body of research using conjoint experimental designs (e.g., Bechtel, Hainmueller, and Margalit 2015; Carlson 2015; Crowder-Meyer et al. 2015; Franchino and Zucchini 2015; Hainmueller, Hangartner, and Yamamoto 2015; Hainmueller and Hopkins 2015; Sen 2015; Bansak, Hainmueller, and Hangartner 2016; Bechtel, Genovese, and Scheve 2016; Brown et al. 2016; Carnes 2016; Gallego and Marx 2016; Horiuchi, Smith, and Yamamoto 2016; Ono and Yamada 2016; Wright, Levy, and Citrin 2016)—nearly all of which represent choice objects (typically persons) with a table of written attributes 3…”

“…Apart from our own work, Crowder-Meyer et al. (2015) is to our knowledge the only conjoint study that has represented race/ethnicity using pictures instead of labels.…”

Do Public Consultations Reduce Blame Attribution? The Impact of Consultation Characteristics, Gender, and Gender Attitudes

“…Further research incorporating visual cues (e.g. Crowder-Meyer et al, 2020) would thus help to assess the robustness of this finding. Second, we posited that the at-times counterintuitive effect of hostile sexism might reflect the measure's connection with conservatism; it could instead, however, be driven by the measure's connection to benevolent sexism (see Glick & Fiske, 1996)-but we lack the data required to assess this possibility.…”

Voters’ evaluation of (contra-)prototypical political candidates. An experimental test of the interaction of candidate gender and policy positions cues in Flanders (Belgium)

“…This paper presents an experimental test of the impact of the inclusion of information about candidates' outspoken rightist or leftist policy positions on the prevalence of issue competence stereotypes. This relates to the idea that candidate gender is a low-information heuristic, primarily used when other policy or candidate information is absent (Crowder-Meyer et al, 2018;McDermott, 1997). Building on social psychological models of impression information, the inclusion of information regarding the policy position of a candidate is expected to affect voters' evaluation of the candidate (Rahn et al, 1990).…”

“…Following the literature on candidate characteristics and voter evaluations, candidate gender can be considered a low-information heuristic, primarily used when other, policy or candidate, information is absent (Crowder-Meyer, Gadarian, Trounstine, & Vue, 2018;McDermott, 1997). When other information is presented, different information cues interact with each other and help voters to form coherent impressions about political candidates (Kundra & Sinclair, 1999).…”