The Effects of Negativity and Motivated Information Processing During a Political Campaign

Abstract

This research investigated how voters select, process, are affected by, and recall political information in a dynamic campaign environment. It was hypothesized that voters' information selection, processing, and recall are subject to a negativity bias (i.e., negative information dominates over positive information), a congruency bias (i.e., positive information about the preferred candidate and negative information about the opponent candidate dominate over negative information about the preferred candidate and positive information about the opponent), and a candidate bias (i.e., information about the preferred candidate dominates over information about the opponent). Motivated by an initial candidate preference, participants were also expected to develop more polarized candidate evaluations over time. Participants were exposed to quickly changing information in the form of newspaper-style headlines on a dynamic, computer-based information board. The results generally supported negativity bias and candidate bias, whereas congruency bias was only found during information recall. At the information selection and processing stages, participants with a strong initial candidate preference showed a disproportionate preference for negative information about the preferred candidate. However, they developed more positive attitudes at the evaluation and recall stage. This finding suggests that participants were engaged in motivated information processing by counterarguing negative information about their preferred candidate.

When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions

“…6 Meffert et al (2006) find a very similar result in another simulated campaign experiment. 7 We report evidence of this phenomenon below in the Study 2 experiment concerning the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction immediately before the U.S. invasion.…”

Media Use and Political Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure

“…Experimental studies that have tried to determine whether people are motivated to select congenial options yield mixed support for selective exposure. In some instances, individuals do tend to choose information supporting their beliefs (Adams 1961;Barlett et al 1974;Chaffee and McLeod 1973;Donsbach 1991;Mills 1965a;Redlawsk 2002;Taber and Lodge 2006), but not always (Feather 1962;Freedman 1965;Meffert et al 2006;Mills et al 1959;Rosen 1961). These conflicting results point to the possibility of a number of contingent conditions that influence whether people engage in selective exposure to news media (Cotton 1985;Frey 1986).…”

Content Characteristics Driving the Diffusion of Antismoking Messages: Implications for Cancer Prevention in the Emerging Public Communication Environment

“…Scholars have suggested that individuals are hardwired for negative information (24)(25)(26)(27). Research has provided strong evidence that negatively valenced information (eg, news stories with a "conflict" frame) is more likely to be selectively viewed (28)(29)(30)(31)(32).…”