Voter reactions to candidate background characteristics depend on candidate policy positions

Pedersen, Rasmus T.; Dahlgaard, Jens Olav; Citi, Manuele

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2019.102066

Cited by 22 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Candidate level of education has also been found to influence voting behaviour (Campbell and Cowley, 2014), with a candidate who left school at age 18 surprisingly favoured by voters in comparison with a candidate who had obtained a university degree. Some research (Pedersen et al, 2019) has also demonstrated that voters infer both personal traits and policy positions from sociodemographic characteristics of candidates.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the exception of a few recent experimental studies focusing on the impact of candidates’ sociodemographic characteristics and issue positions on voting behaviour (Arnesen et al, 2019; Franchino and Zucchini, 2015; Kirkland and Coppock, 2018; Pedersen et al, 2019), relatively little is known about the extent to which the impact of a wide variety of characteristics differs. For example, we know little about the extent to which the impact of candidate sociodemographic characteristics compares with other candidate characteristics, such as issue positions and party affiliation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

How candidate characteristics matter: Candidate profiles, political sophistication, and vote choice

Coffé¹,

Schoultz

2020

Politics

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Our study examines the influence of various candidate characteristics (sociodemographic profile, competence and experience, issue positions, and party affiliation) on voters’ preference for a candidate, and investigates the impact of voters’ levels of political sophistication on their likelihood of considering various candidate characteristics when deciding whom to support. Using data from the 2015 Finnish National Election Study, this study is situated within the complex Finnish open list system with many candidates at display and mandatory preference voting. We find that voters mostly argue to make their choice based on candidate characteristics with direct politically relevant information such as candidate party affiliation and issue positions. Candidate sociodemographic profile has relatively little stated impact. Overall, voters with higher levels of political sophistication tend to be more likely to consider a broad range of candidate characteristics. When investigating the relative impact of each candidate characteristic (that is, their impact relative to the other candidate characteristics) on voting behaviour, political sophistication increases the likelihood of saying to rely on candidate characteristics that are more demanding in terms of information processing such as competence and experience, and issue positions. Our analyses also show how different measures of political sophistication have distinct effects.

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Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How candidate characteristics matter: Candidate profiles, political sophistication, and vote choice

Coffé¹,

Schoultz

2020

Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Information shortcuts come in different forms and can be, for example, related to the ideological schemata of politics, perhaps in the form of party identification (Conover and Feldman 1986), or to specific policy issues (Arnesen, Duell, and Johannesson 2019). They can, however, also be less related to the substantive side of politics, and instead connect to various characteristics of candidates such as their age, gender or looks (Berggren, Jordahl, and Poutvaara 2010;Campbell and Cowley 2014;Pedersen, Dahlgaard, and Citi 2019).…”

Section: Endorsements and Candidate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

How voters choose one out of many: a conjoint analysis of the effects of endorsements on candidate choice

Christensen

Järvi

Mattila

et al. 2021

Political Research Exchange

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Candidate endorsements affect the likelihood that people vote for a candidate since they reduce the efforts devoted to vote choices. However, the effects of endorsements from different sources remain under-explored. Furthermore, the effects of endorsements are believed to vary with the level of political sophistication, as voters with low sophistication are more reliant on such shortcuts, but it is unclear whether these differences are similar for different sources. We study the effects of endorsements from three different sourcesfamily and close friends, networks on social media and Voting Advice Applications (VAAs)on candidate favorability. We do so with a choice-based conjoint experiment embedded in a survey from Finland (n = 1021), where we also examine differences in effects across political sophistication (political interest, frequency of political discussions, internal political efficacy, party identification, and voting in the last parliamentary election). The results show that endorsements from VAAs and family and friends have positive effects while social media networks do not. We do not find systematic differences in effects across levels of political sophistication no matter how we operationalize it. This shows that it is important to consider the source of an endorsement to appreciate the effect, no matter who is the recipient.

show abstract

“…Information shortcuts come in different forms and can be, for example, related to the ideological schemata of politics, perhaps in the form of party identification (Conover and Feldman, 1986), or to specific policy issues (Arnesen et al, 2019). They can, however, also be less related to the substantive side of politics, and instead connect to various characteristics of candidates such as their age, gender or looks (Campbell and Cowley, 2014;Pedersen et al, 2019;Berggren et al, 2010).…”

Section: Endorsements and Candidate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

How do voters choose one out of many? The effect of endorsements on candidate choice

Christensen¹,

Järvi²,

Mattila³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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We study the effect of endorsements from three different sources – family and close friends, networks on social media and Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) – on candidate favorability. Such shortcuts reduce the efforts devoted to vote choices, but their effects are believed to vary with the level of political sophistication, as voters with low sophistication are more reliant on such shortcuts. With a conjoint experiment carried out in Finland, we examine effects of endorsements on candidate favorability and differences across level of political sophistication. Results show that endorsements from VAAs and family and friends have positive effects while social media networks do not. We do not find systematic differences in effects across levels of political sophistication no matter how we operationalize it.

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Voter reactions to candidate background characteristics depend on candidate policy positions

Cited by 22 publications

References 65 publications

How candidate characteristics matter: Candidate profiles, political sophistication, and vote choice

How candidate characteristics matter: Candidate profiles, political sophistication, and vote choice

How voters choose one out of many: a conjoint analysis of the effects of endorsements on candidate choice

How do voters choose one out of many? The effect of endorsements on candidate choice

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