The verbal image: Student perceptions of political figures

Douglas, Jack

doi:10.1080/03637757209375733

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Recent work indicates that voter evaluations of candidates are multidimensional (Douglas, 1972;Kjeldahl, Carmichael, & Mertz, 1971). Indeed, several good studies have assessed the impact of these multidimensional evaluations on voting preference.…”

Section: In Memoriammentioning

confidence: 99%

Candidate Valence as a Predictor of Voter Preference

Andersen

Kibler

1978

Human Comm Res

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The effects of source valence, including its components source credibility, attraction, and homophily, on voter preference were examined in this study. A systematic sample with a random start of 350 registered Democratic voters in Tallahassee, Florida, was used to test the effects of eight dimensions of source valence on voter preference. The differential valence of the two candidates was the best predictor of voter preference. The eight-variable model accounted for 61% of the variance in voter preference, while attitude homophily alone accounted for 58% of that variance.The relationship between voter evaluations of political candidates and voting preferences has been the subject of considerable investigation. These evaluations have been called candidate images, voter attitudes, voter perceptions of the candidate and a variety of other labels. One important goal of this research was to ascertain the relationship between these voter evaluations or images of the candidates and voter preferences in electoral contests.The literature reveals several problems that have prevented a thorough test of this relationship. First, many studies on candidate image have suffered from the operationalization of image as a general evaluative construct rather than an empirically based, multidimensional construct. Second, studies which have utilized multidimensional measures of image were conducted principally in presidential elections, preventing generalization to state and local elections. Finally, most studies have been conducted in general elections where the impact of Perer A. Andersen (Ph.D., Florida State University, 1975) is assistant professor of speech communication at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506.party affiliation is more powerful than the voters' evaluation of the candidates. Assessing the impact of voters' evaluations in primary elections would eliminate this party-identification effect and would allow the specific effect of voters' evaluation of the candidates to be studied. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between voter evaluations of candidates and voting preference.Previous candidate evaluation or image research has demonstrated that evaluations of candidates have a substantial impact on voting. Stokes (1966) maintains that fluctuations in electoral attitudes have focused primarily on the candidates themselves. This study, however, did not carefully measure the various dimensions of candidate image. Leuthold ( 1968) found that in congressional elections nearly two-thirds of the voters thought that the candidate was their most important reason for voting, but no actual measures of image were collected. Instead, the conclusion is based on reports of the voter's reason for hedhis voting decision. Likewise, Conway (1968) reports that in low stimulus elections, personal appeals and campaign- IN MEMORIAMWord of the sudden death of Dr. Robert J. Kibler was received while this article was in press. His passing is a severe loss to all who have known and loved him, as well as to ICA, wh...

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Section: In Memoriammentioning

confidence: 99%

Candidate Valence as a Predictor of Voter Preference

Andersen

Kibler

1978

Human Comm Res

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“…right/wrong, honest/dishonest, trustworthy/ untrustworthy, faidunfair, experienced/inexperienced, profesional/unprofessional), three different items referring to an 'attraction' feature (i,e, sympathetichnsympathetic, pleasanthnpleasant, attractivehnattractive) and the 'evaluation' scale of Anderson & Bass (1967) (thoughtfulhnthoughtful, patienthmpatient, intelligenthnintelligent, calm/turbulent, carefulhncareful). 15 items were added, all inspired by the definition of the notion of demagogy and some of the personality scales developed by Douglas (1972). The scales were presented in the same sequence and not varied and were expanded by the following questions:…”

Section: Introduction Of a Political Labelmentioning

confidence: 99%

From eloquence to credulity ‐ A study of ‘demagogy’in a political message

Linden¹

1990

European J Political Res

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Abstract. This study aims at exploring the notion of demagogy in the process of political communication in order to understand the relational processes between a politician and the public. The central concern was whether demagogy should be considered as a political phenomenon, or as a concept in the psychological definition of the word. Knowing that the political context and the notification of political involvement have changed, demagogy can be integrated in the communication process either as an attribute of an observed politician, or as an attribute of the observer. Furthermore, the question was raised whether demagogy can be linked to other personality scales. Finally, issues such as the knowledge of demagogy and its context, the influence of political labels on judgments and the influence of the discrepancy between sender and observer ‐ with regard to their party membership and attitudes ‐ were considered. Subjects of the study were 144 members of the Flemish Socialist Party. They were shown a video‐recorded political speech about the Belgian Harbour Policy. The experiment was in the form of a 2 × 3 factorial design, controlling for party‐affiliation of the speaker and the demagogic performance of the speech. Results indicate that demagogy was not known by the public at large, but only belonged to the language code of politicians. It was found that the notion demagogy ought to be handled as a psychological characteristic, and a perceptual model in which demagogy could be seen as the convergence of several behaviour‐oriented components was proposed. In regard to the influence of the political parties of the politician on the public, results confirm the classical expectations, i.e. labels affect judgments. The author also presents a psychological process, explaining the results about the discrepancy between the politician and the public.

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“…A variety of perspectives have guided efforts to detect features of the candidate's persona that may be most salient to the public. Some researchers have used the semantic differential to measure the connotative aspects of a candidate's image (Patton, 1978;Powell, 1977;Simons & Leibowitz, 1979;Stricker, 1963), whereas others have measured personality traits (Douglas, 1972;Kjeldahl, Carmichael, & Mertz, 1971;Roberts, 1981), political and stylistic traits (Nimmo & Savage, 1976), and voters' perceptions of issue and background similarity (Andersen & Kibler, 1978;Kendall & Yum, 1984).…”

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confidence: 99%

Images Versus Issues in the 1984 Presidential Election Differences Between Men and Women

et al. 1991

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Recent accounts of male and female personality development suggest that members of each sex difler in the orientations and capacities they bring to their experience of the political world. This article explores the relative importance of respondents' images of the candidates and respondents'political positions to predictions of males'and females' candidate preferences. It was predicted that candidate images bused on interpersonal communication behavior, as opposed to respondents'political positions, would be a more powerful predictor offemales'candidate preferences. The opposite pattern was expected to be thecase for rnales'candidate preferences. These predictions weresupported; however, the data analysis also indicated that both candidate images and political positions contributed significantly to predictions offemales'candidate preferences.

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The verbal image: Student perceptions of political figures

Cited by 14 publications

References 8 publications

Candidate Valence as a Predictor of Voter Preference

Candidate Valence as a Predictor of Voter Preference

From eloquence to credulity ‐ A study of ‘demagogy’in a political message

Images Versus Issues in the 1984 Presidential Election Differences Between Men and Women

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