Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations

Bhatti, Yosef; Hansen, Kasper Møller; Olsen, Asmus Leth

doi:10.1057/ap.2013.6

Cited by 67 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…At the same time, studies have shown that exposure to scandals depresses voters’ candidate evaluations (Bhatti, Hansen, & Olsen, ; Carlson, Ganiel, & Hyde, ; Doherty et al, ) and reduces trust in political institutions and the political process (Bowler & Karp, ; Maier, ). Politicians’ moral transgressions are extensively covered by the media (Fogarty, ).…”

Section: Moral Violations and Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Numerous factors are mentioned as potential sources for this variance in voters' responses. Voters may respond differently to different types of scandals (Bhatti et al, 2013;Carlson et al, 2000;Doherty et al, 2011;Fernández-Vázquez et al, 2016). Thompson (2013) distinguishes three types of scandals, namely sex scandals, financial fraud scandals, and corruption scandals.…”

Section: Heterogeneous Responses To Politicians' Moral Transgressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, and especially relevant for our study, political identity in the form of partisanship may influence voters' perceptions of politicians' immoral behavior (Anduiza et al, 2013;Bhatti et al, 2013;Blais et al, 2010;Fischle, 2000). Partisan preferences can engage motivated reasoning processes that lead voters to discount or otherwise accept behavior from politicians who share those preferences, that they would not for politicians from another party (Kunda, 1990;Redlawsk, 2002).…”

Section: Heterogeneous Responses To Politicians' Moral Transgressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There may be good reason to think that moral foundations themselves can become subsumed within partisan identity, so that violations of foundations by the "other side" are much worse than violations by "our side." At the same time, studies have shown that exposure to scandals depresses voters' candidate evaluations (Bhatti, Hansen, & Olsen, 2013;Carlson, Ganiel, & Hyde, 2000;Doherty et al, 2011) and reduces trust in political institutions and the political process (Bowler & Karp, 2004;Maier, 2011). Politicians' moral transgressions are extensively covered by the media (Fogarty, 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Walter

Redlawsk

2019

Political Psychology

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Politicians’ moral behaviors affect how voters evaluate them. But existing empirical research on the effects of politicians’ violations of moral standards pays little attention to the heterogeneous moral foundations of voters in assessing responses to violations. It also pays little attention to the ways partisan preferences shape responses. We examine voters’ heterogeneous evaluative and emotional responses to presumably immoral behaviors by politicians. We make use of moral foundation theory’s argument that people vary in the extent to which they endorse, value, and use the five universally available moral intuitions: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. We report on a 5 × 3 between‐subjects experiment asking a random sample of 2,026 U.S. respondents to respond to politicians’ violations of different moral foundations. We randomly vary which of the five foundations is violated and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). Results suggest that partisanship rather than moral foundations drives most of U.S. voters’ responses to moral foundations violations by politicians. These foundations seem malleable when partisan actors are involved. While Democrats in this sample show stronger negative emotional response to moral violations than Republicans, partisans of both parties express significantly greater negativity when a politician of the other party violates a moral foundation.

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Section: Moral Violations and Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Heterogeneous Responses To Politicians' Moral Transgressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Heterogeneous Responses To Politicians' Moral Transgressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Walter

Redlawsk

2019

Political Psychology

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“…Fischle (2000) found that, in the Lewinsky scandal, Americans' prior affect toward Clinton colored their perceptions of the nature, factuality, and importance of the scandal. Bhatti et al (2013) found that supporters of a political party judge a politician from the opposite party who is involved in a scandal more harshly. Anduiza et al's (2013) study in Spain also found that closeness to the party of a politician involved in a corruption scandal related negatively to perceived importance of corruption.…”

Section: Political Scandals and Public Opinion Toward Politiciansmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Citizens React to Political Scandals Surrounding Government Leaders: A Survey Study in Hong Kong

Lee¹

2014

Asian Journal of Political Science

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Public opinion research has suggested that the negative impact of scandals on public evaluation of the politicians involved is not always strong. Part of the reason is that people may hold varying perceptions regarding the nature, factuality, and importance of the scandals. According to the theory of motivated reasoning, people develop varying perceptions by processing information in ways that reconfirm their existing views. This study applies such insights to analyze how citizens react to political scandals surrounding government leaders in Hong Kong, where such scandals have arguably become increasingly prominent in recent years. This study constructs a theoretical model linking prior political attitudes, scandal-related perceptions, response evaluation, and evaluation of politicians. Analysis of survey data confirms most of the hypotheses in two cases. External efficacy and support for democracy substantially influence perceived factuality and acceptability of the scandals. Such perceptions shape people's evaluations of the responses by the government and the officials involved, which in turn affect evaluation of the officials.

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Age‐related differences when measuring political hypocrisy

Prete

Guido

Pichierri

et al. 2018

Journal of Public Affairs

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This article aims to develop a scale for measuring political hypocrisy (conceptualized as the inconsistency between values publicly expressed by politicians and the behavior they actually demonstrate) and to explore the role of age in voters' perceptions of politicians' hypocrisy, analyzing if citizens belonging to different age groups may identify politicians' hypocrisy with a different detail. Results show that the 19-item scale of political hypocrisy-composed of three dimensions, called "ambiguity," "slyness," and "deceit"-has good psychometric properties, and that age-related differences when measuring political hypocrisy do exist (young voters show a greater awareness of the hypocritical behavior held by politicians). Furthermore, results suggest that the perception of political hypocrisy may vary according both to voters' political orientation and voting intention.

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Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations

Cited by 67 publications

References 40 publications

Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

How Citizens React to Political Scandals Surrounding Government Leaders: A Survey Study in Hong Kong

Age‐related differences when measuring political hypocrisy

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