How voters assess elite-educated politicians: A survey experiment

Gift, Thomas; Lastra-Anadón, Carlos Xabel

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2018.09.004

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…For example, volunteers may be more motivated by academic interest than the general public, or their high levels of intrinsic motivation may be associated with unrepresentative attitudes and behaviors [28]. Given that studies from volunteer pools are already appearing in prominent social science journals (e.g., [29–31]), these possibilities should be investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online volunteer laboratories for human subjects research

et al. 2019

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Once a fixture of research in the social and behavioral sciences, volunteer subjects are now only rarely used in human subjects research. Yet volunteers are a potentially valuable resource, especially for research conducted online. We argue that online volunteer laboratories are able to produce high-quality data comparable to that from other online pools. The scalability of volunteer labs means that they can produce large volumes of high-quality data for multiple researchers, while imposing little or no financial burden. Using a range of original tests, we show that volunteer and paid respondents have different motivations for participating in research, but have similar descriptive compositions. Furthermore, volunteer samples are able to replicate classic and contemporary social science findings, and produce high levels of overall response quality comparable to paid subjects. Our results suggest that online volunteer labs represent a potentially significant untapped source of human subjects data.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online volunteer laboratories for human subjects research

et al. 2019

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“…Our results add to a sizable literature on candidate experiments (Campbell & Cowley, 2014;Carnes & Sadin, 2015;Gift & Lastra-Anadón, 2018;Kahn, 1994;Sigelman et al, 1995) by examining how an important background traitspecifically, whether politicians send their children to public or private school-affects ballot box appeal. While prior research has analyzed the effect of family compositionincluding whether politicians have children-on electability, we find that decisions regarding families can condition how voters perceive politicians.…”

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confidence: 66%

DCPS or Sidwell Friends? How Politician Schooling Choices Affect Voter Evaluations

Finger

Gift

Miner

2021

American Politics Research

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Voters often rely on informational shortcuts, such as the background traits of politicians, to decide which candidates to support at the ballot box. One such background trait is family composition, particularly parental status. Research, however, has mostly overlooked whether the value-laden choices that politicians make regarding their families—like what neighborhoods they live in, where they worship, and what schools they send their children to—affect how constituents view them. We conduct a survey experiment in the U.S. that presents respondents with hypothetical biographies of politicians that randomly vary one of the most important decisions that politicians make regarding their families: whether to send them to public or private school. We find that: (1) voters are more inclined to vote for politicians with children in public school; and (2) this preference may be due to voters perceiving these politicians as both warmer and more committed to public services.

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“…Various studies have asked why Congress consists of mostly high‐SES members (e.g., Carnes ; Gift and Lastra‐Anadon ). Our experiments join a growing body of evidence suggesting that voter demand is not one of the reasons (Campbell and Cowley ; Carnes and Lupu ; Hainmueller, Hopkins, and Yamamoto ; Wüest and Pontusson ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A growing body of candidate experiment studies has examined the impact of candidate SES on voters. However, most of these studies have focused on candidate occupation (Campbell and Cowley ; Carnes and Lupu ; McDermott ) or education (Carnes and Lupu ; Gift and Lastra‐Anadon ; Hainmueller, Hopkins, and Yamamoto ). For example, Carnes and Lupu () found that subjects viewed a factory‐worker candidate as more “relatable” than a business‐owner candidate.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Carnes and Lupu () found that subjects viewed a factory‐worker candidate as more “relatable” than a business‐owner candidate. Gift and Lastra‐Anadon () found that liberal subjects perceived candidates who graduated from an elite university as more competent than graduates of less elite schools, while conservative subjects found these candidates less relatable. Two studies examined the effects of candidate income in countries outside the United States.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Class War in the Voting Booth: Bias Against High‐Income Congressional Candidates

Griffin

Newman

Buhr

2019

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Do Americans care how much money congressional candidates earn? We conducted three experiments to examine how candidates' incomes affect voters' perceptions of the candidates' traits and ultimately their vote intention. Subjects evaluated otherwise identical candidates with annual incomes randomly varying between $75,000, $3 million, and a candidate with no income information provided. Results from the three experiments are remarkably similar. Subjects viewed the $3 million earner as significantly more intelligent than the candidate with no income information provided, but this benefit of high income was overshadowed by significant biases against the $3 million candidate. Subjects consistently viewed the $3 million earner as less honest, less caring, and less representative of them than the other candidates. Ultimately, subjects were less likely to say they would vote for the $3 million candidate. These findings demonstrate that the campaign advantages that high‐income candidates enjoy are somewhat offset by voters' initial bias against them.

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How voters assess elite-educated politicians: A survey experiment

Cited by 11 publications

References 39 publications

Online volunteer laboratories for human subjects research

Online volunteer laboratories for human subjects research

DCPS or Sidwell Friends? How Politician Schooling Choices Affect Voter Evaluations

Class War in the Voting Booth: Bias Against High‐Income Congressional Candidates

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