election related behavioral outcomes: televised negative campaign messages

ELECTION RELATED BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES:

TELEVISED NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN MESSAGES

Allan McBride The University of Southern Mississippi

Robert Toburen Louisiana Tech University

Dan Thomas Wartburg College

The research reported in this paper is an examination of the self-reported systemic e f s e s of negative campaign advertising. Subjects in a series of field experiments conducted in 1986, 1988, and 1990 were exposed to televised negative campaign advertising within several nights prior to an election. The stimulus a d were taken JLom those aired as part of actual election campaigns. Using aposttest only control group design the authors examinedfor diflerences between groups in terms of voter turnout, controlling for the voter interest in politics and whether the campaign was for the presidency or Senate. Support was found for the notion that negative campaign a& depressed voter turnout under some conditions. The authors also found that negative advertising may stimulate voter activity under some conditions.

considerable scholarly interest has been generated in recent years concerning the effects of negative campaign advertising (Ansolabehere et al. 1994; Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1996; Basil, Schooler, and Reeves 1991; Gans 1986; Garramone l984,1985a, 1985b; Garramone et al. 1990; Hill 1989; Johnson and Copeland 1987; Kaid and Sanders 1978; Kaid 198 1 ; Kaid and Johnston 1991; Merritt 1984; Pfau and Kenski 1990; Roddy and Garramone 1988; Surlin and Gordon 1977; West 1993). In this paper we report the results of three field experiments on the effects of televised negative stimulus campaign advertising on voter turnout.

According to Garramone, the purpose of negative campaign advertising is to “create negative feelings toward the targeted candidate and positive feelings toward the sponsoring candidate” (1 984,250). Negative campaign

Southeastern Political Review Volume 25 No. I March 1997

64 Southeastern Political Review VoL 25 No. 1

advertising is widespread in American political campaigns, although whether its use is increasing is a matter of controversy. Joslyn (1986) has reported a content analysis of 506 TV commercials sponsored by candidates for office at different levels of government over several years in which he found that 23% of the ads focused on some sort of failure by an opposition candidate or party. Kaid and Johnston (1 99 1 ) found that the percentage of unique negative ads used in presidential elections since 1980 has remained constant at 35% of the total number of ads. According to their estimate, the peak of negative advertising was reached in the 1964 JohnsodGoldwater election, when 40% of the ads were negative in nature. West (1993) provides some evidence that negative ads peaked in 1968 and 1988, with a general upward trend since 1952. Researchers have not yet established whether negative campaign advertising is being broadcast more frequently than other types of advertising.

Whether or not negative advertising is actually increasing, it has received increasing amounts of criticism from scholars who have specifically suggested that a “negativity effect” has developed, which is creating cynicism and reducing voter turnout (Grove 1989; Taylor 1989; Shapiro 1990; Gans 1986; Basil, Schooler and Reeves 1991). As early as 1981, Sabato suggested that negative advertising was “producing a revulsion about politics,” causing many voters to “tune out on election day” (1981, 325). Fueling these impressions were poll findings of widespread skepti- cism or cynicism among voters, though historical events of the past 30 years have no doubt contributed to that trend. A Wall Street JournallNBC poll prior to the 1988 presidential election found that nearly 60% of respondents wished they had other alternatives (Hume and Jaroslovsky 1988). The fact that the negative ad laden 1988 presidential race produced the lowest turnout since 1924 only strengthened the argument (Taylor 1989).

On the other hand, there is also historical evidence that negative campaigning may sometimes be associated with high turnout. Campaigns for public office in the latter part of the 19th century, for example, were also characterized by high levels of vitriolic attacks upon candidates and political parties.

Newspapers’ editorial voice reinforced the sense of party as the basic guide to men and events. The editor presented a landscape starkly divided into friends and foes .... The opposition party was “our ene- mies....” The editor cautioned readers to ignore propaganda from the opposition and to watch for tricks at the polls. On election day, he sprinkled his pages with injunctions to “Pay No Attention to Cam- paign Lies and Liars” and to “Guard the Polls” and “Vote Early.” Always ready to expose the opposing party’s “lies” and “roor-

Election Related Behavioral Outcomes 65

backs,”’ the editor set an example of militant, combative partisanship for his readers (McGerr 1986, 17). In that earlier time “roorbacks” were common, accepted practice, as

were campaign attacks. Interestingly, during that historical period voter turnout was at its highest level in American history.

NEGATIVITY EFFECTS Three types of effects may result from viewing negative advertising:

changes in attitude, changes in behavioral intention, and changes in behavior. Experimental research on both the effects of negative product advertising and negative political advertising has revealed evidence of what may be called a negativity effect on the attitudes of subjects. Dimensions of such an effect reported by researchers include general negative thoughts (Belch 198 l), negative responses to the target (Levine 1976), negative responses to both sponsor and target (Wright 1973; Swinyard 1981; Gorn and Wein- berg 1984; Garramone 1984; Hill 1989; Levine 1976; Basil, Schooler, and Reeves 1991), and disapproval of the ads themselves (Garramone 1984; Merritt 1984; Hill 1989; Surlin and Gordon 1977; Roddy and Garramone 1958). Some researchers have reported evidence that responses were contingent upon the subjects’ predispositions toward the candidates (Wright 1973; Swinyard 1981; Gorn and Weinberg 1984; Merritt 1984).

Researchers have also gone beyond measuring general attitude change by trying to measure changes in behavioral intention (Garramone et al. 1990; Ansolabehere et al. 1994). The research they report is suggestive though not conclusive. Using adult subjects, Ansolabehere and Iyengar (1996) found support for the hypothesis that exposure to actual negative campaign ads results in lower levels of reported intention to vote. Garra- mone et al. ( 1990), using student subjects in a non-randomized experimental setting, reported no support for a similar hypothesis.

The current research report is an investigation of the final component of effect: that of changes in actual behavior resulting from viewing negative advertising .

THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS Today negative ads are so freely used by politicians and their media

advisors because they can point to evidence that such ads are effective (Kaid and Johnston 199 1; see also Pfau and Kenski 1990; and West 1993 for a descriptive analysis of the strategic use of negative advertising). Retention of negative materials, such as those found in political attack advertising, may be a product of a mechanism called “automatic vigilance.” Automatic

66 Southeastern Political Review Vol. 25 No. I

vigilance is defined as “a mechanism that serves to direct attentional capacity to undesirable stimuli ...[ which] are more likely to attract attention than are desirable stimuli” (Pratto and John 1991, 380). Pratto and John found that, when presented with stimuli that had a clear negative connota- tion in the context of performing an unrelated task (i.e. when their attention was diverted) subjects’ attention was unintentionally and unavoidably drawn to the material. Furthermore, experimental subjects retained negative information in greater detail than positive information, which the researchers concluded can lead to negative bias in the evaluatiodjudgment process.

Viewed from the standpoint of learning theory, negative campaign advertising can be seen as a form of secondary negative reinforcement which, theoretically speaking, should extinguish the targeted behavior (a vote for the opposing candidate). This is precisely the intended effect of such ads by their sponsors; an unintended consequence may be to reduce voting for the sponsoring candidate as well as the targeted candidate, thus depressing turnout generally. When both candidates employ attack ads, as is frequently the case, the effect on turnout may be even more significant.

In light of the above, the first hypothesis to be tested is

HI: The experimental group (subjects exposed to the negative television political advertising treatment) should have a lower turnout rate than members of the control group (subjects not exposed to the negative advertising).

However, all voters may not be equally susceptible to campaign commercials. The level of involvement reported by subjects may be an inter- vening variable. Low ego involvement viewers have few psychological and informational barriers to campaign related materials and as a result should be susceptible to the effects of new information, making them more likely to change after being exposed to the campaign materials (Rothschild 1978; Roser 1990). Thus low involvement subjects may be expected to be negatively affected by viewing the ads, resulting in low turnout, particularly if the ads attack all candidates in the election.

On the other hand, citizens with a high level of interest or involvement in the campaign, or in politics in general, may be predisposed in one of two directions. “Social judgement theory” (Roser 1990) suggests that high ego involvement voters are likely to evidence less tolerance of other views and to be more resistant to persuasion; Rothschild (1978) refers to these sorts of persons as “loyalists.” Alternatively, the “elaboration likelihood model” (Roser 1990) states that high levels of involvement will result in stronger responses to persuasion; that access to information will increase the propensity to process information fully. Viewers, according to this


theory, are more likely to integrate new information into their cognitive schema and thus to be influenced by it. Rothschild refers to voters whose goal is to integrate new information as “information seekers.” These theories suggest that different high involvement subjects may react to negative ads in different ways: some may fail to be affected by the ads one way or the other, some may be negatively affected by the negative information and be discouraged from voting, and some may be stimulated to vote by the ads.

Obviously, no message, advertising or other, could affect totally disin- terested subjects. Rothschild posited that a minimal threshold of interest is necessary to trigger the effects of advertising on low involvement subjects. In this research a subject’s having taken the time to register to vote is used as an indicator that this threshold has been reached. From a practical research standpoint this is a necessary condition, as the dependent variable is the act of voting.

In light of the above, the second hypothesis to be tested is:

H2: Among low involvement subjects who are registered to vote, those in the experimental group (exposed to negative ads) should have a lower turnout rate than those in the control group (not exposed to negative ads). Among high involvement subjects viewing negative ads may result in mixed outcomes. Rothschild hypothesizes not only that involvement will act as an inter-

vening variable between the message and the behavior but also that the process of change will differ depending upon the level of involvement. According to his formulation, the low involvement subject has little or no “attitudinal development” prior to behavior. She or he receives the messages, but does not evaluate them or develop a stand; behavior develops on the basis of the immediate message and attitudes are altered later. The high involvement subject already has well-developed attitudes and opinions which must be changed prior to any behavior change; hence behavior change is more difficult to induce, and, if it occurs at all, it follows attitude change. Rothschild’s model of effects is presented below:

In light of Rothschild’s model, the third hypothesis to be tested is:

LOW INVOLVEMENT HIGH INVOLVEMENT Stimulus Stimulus

c Behavior c Attitude Change

4 Behavior 4 Attitude Change

68 Southeastern Political Review Vol, 25 No. 1

H3: Low involvement subjects in the experimental group (exposed to negative ads), who express a high intention to vote, should nevertheless have lower turnout rates than low involvement, high intention subjects in the contrbl group (not exposed to negative ads). High involvement subjects in the experimental group who express a high intention to vote should have turnout rates closer to those of their counterparts in the control groups.

Finally, Rothschild argues that the “media will have little impact in a high IeveLrace such as a presidential race” or in a race in which there are volatile issues or a close “horse race” (1978,61).

DATA COLLECTION The experimental data were collected at three universities-two in the

north central portion of Louisiana and one in northeast Iowa. One of the Louisiana institutions is a regional, technical, four-year state university, enrollment about 11,000, with most of the students drawn from the surrounding four-state region (Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi). The second is a historically black, four-year state university, enrollment about 6000, with many students coming from within the state, though the university also draws a large proportion of its student body from outside the state and region. The third university is a small liberal arts college, enrollment about 1200, which draws the bulk of its student body from Iowa and surrounding states. Differences in the makeup of the student bodies were reflected in the makeup of the subjects who participated in the project.

The decision to use an experimental design was based upon a desire to increase the internal validity of the research. Communication researchers commonly employ the experimental approach in an effort to demonstrate the direct effects that media has upon the viewing public. As Rothschild notes

... if one were studying the effects of communication on cognitive, affective, or conative development, it would be preferable to use some sort of experimental design to separate the effects of the key independent variable(s) and to eliminate contamination from other elements in the environment (1978, 59).

The primary virtue of experimental research over survey research is that it isolates the independent or experimental variable so that its effects can be more clearly examined. While the use of statistical controls that are available to the survey research is valuable, it is more difficult to eliminate competing alternative hypotheses using such tools.

Election Related Behavioral Outcomes t@

By adopting a field experiment design we were able to use real campaign commercials as the independent variable and self-reported vote as the dependent variable. Self-reported vote is stronger evidence of effect than is vote intention which has been used as the dependent variable by some researchers. Self-reported vote is a particularly strong dependent variable ifthe subjects are unaware of the nature ofthe research effort, which seemed to be the case in these experiments. In discussions with subjects at the conclusion of the research we found that they were surprised to learn that we were interested in whether they had actually voted in the election.

Subjects were solicited on all three campuses from political science and criminal justice classes, though the bulk of the subjects came from political science classes. Subjects were offered extra credit points in their classes if they participated.

The research was conducted within three nights prior to the election in all three election years. In two of the experiments (1986 and 1988) the data were collected the night prior to the election while in the third they were collected two to three days in advance of the election. In the last experiment the primary election was held on a Saturday, which meant that, to be consistent with the previous experiments, the treatment would have been administered on a Friday evening. The researchers decided that attendance at a Friday evening experiment would be too low to risk. Therefore the presentations were made on the Wednesday and Thursday preceding the election.

Depending upon the year, subjects were assigned to their groups using either a roll of a die or with a table of random numbers. The treatment groups viewed a recent episode of either Kate andAllie (1986), Family Ties (1988), or the Cosby Show ( I 990), with four negative campaign ads edited into each episode in place of some of the regular product advertising. The use of embedded ads is justified in two ways. First, this is the normal manner in which advertising is presented to the American consumer/voter. Second, the use of light entertainment programming, of which Kate and Affie and the others are examples, provides a context for viewing that satisfies Pratto and John’s (1991) notion of attention diversion.

The control group viewed the same program as the experimental group each year, except the program included normal product advertising. At the conclusion of the episode both groups were asked to complete a posttest. The questionnaire varied slightly in content from year to year, though we retained the primary measures from one year to the next. The questionnaire ranged in length from four to six pages. Items in the protocol included measures of partisanship, of interest in politics and the campaign, measures of attitudes toward the candidates, and of the subject’s intention to vote.

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We used a posttest only design for these experiments to avoid potential interaction between the pretest and the experimental treatment.

At the conclusion of the administration of the posttest the students were advised that they would be contacted within a few days in their classrooms for the administration of a final posttest. Inevitably this resulted in some mortality, even though several trips were made to each class to increase the total of completed questionnaires. Since respondents were randomly assigned to their groups mortality and any effects of history should have affected each group similarly. The final questionnaire had three items: had the subject voted, had he/she voted using an absentee ballot, and for whom had he/she voted? Subjects who indicated that they had voted absentee or who were not registered to vote locally were excluded from the analysis.

The administration of the protocol in groups rather than in individual settings was justified by the importance of maintaining temporal proximity between the experimental variable and the primary dependent variable- turnout in the primary. While there is the potential of contamination from group behavior, the researchers who observed the administration of the experiment noted no unusual behavior that could have threatened the internal validity of the project, though the laboratory nature of this part of the research does impact the external validity of the findings. One of the programs which was used as part of the treatment, FumiZy Ties, did contain some election related political content, unusual for such programming, but since both the experimental group and the control group viewed the same material any effects should be equally distributed between groups.

The use of students in research may be objected to, but we feel that there is a reasonable justification for doing so. Young people are recognized by political scientists as having generally low interest, low involvement, and low levels of voter turnout. They therefore represent the segment of the population that, according to Rothschild, is most likely to be affected by campaign advertising, particularly in relation to more seasoned voters.

In two of the three campaigns, negative TV ads were used by both candidates. The exception was the 1990 Senate race in which only J. Bennett Johnston, the incumbent, used negative advertising. David Duke, the challenger, refrained from producing and airing negative ads. In the 1986 campaign for the other Louisiana Senate seat, both candidates used a significant amount of negative advertising, but it was not a major issue in the campaign. In the 1988 presidential election, it will be remembered that not only did both camps use attack tactics, but the media also addressed the issue in news programming so that the ads became an issue themselves.

For the first two campaigns, then, the researchers were able to locate sufficient numbers of state-of-the-art ads that fit the description of negative


advertising. The ads that were ultimately selected as part of the treatment are described in the appendix.

Unlike the previous Senate campaign in Louisiana (1 986), negative advertising was used to a far less extent and much later in the 1990 Senate race. The incumbent, J. Bennett Johnston, was the only candidate to resort to negative campaign ads, as the primary challenger, David Duke, refrained, for the most part, from personal or political attacks on his opponent. Therefore, we resorted to ads that had been collected nationally by “Cam- paign Industry News” (CIN) from the 1988 non-presidential campaigns that were deemed to be of a negative character (the negative rating was given by CIN and confirmed by the researchers). The criteria for selection included that the ads be negative, and that the state in which the campaign occurred not be featured prominently in the ads. Eventually we adopted four ads from the McCarthyNiIson Senate race in California which had the added advantage of continuity in the presentation of the treatment. The ads were of a “charges and counter charges” nature. (See the appendix for a description of these ads.)

There were several reasons we thought this was an acceptable substitu- tion. Although candidates may choose negative ads partly because they hope to reduce turnout for their opponents, the literature linking low turnout to negative ads points to a more general cynicism created by the ads, not just revulsion against a particular candidate, as the cause (Sabato 1981; Grove 1989; Taylor 1989; Shapiro 1990; Gans 1986). We therefore as- sumed that one of the primary effects of any negative campaign advertising would be to create a negative valence for viewers for the campaign and possibly for politics as well. In particular, it was our view that low involvement subjects would be less likely to recognize that the ads were not from the current campaign. Finally, we address the issue from the perspec- tive of the strength of the treatment. Since there were very few negative campaign ads used in the 1990 campaign, the likelihood that the electorate had been saturated with ads was low. The use of non-salient ads we thought could be a sufficiently strong treatment as a result. Thus the utilization of ads that were not from the local campaign, while not the optimum choice, was judged to be a satisfactory second choice.

ANALYSIS Each of the data sets collected in the years 1986, 1988 and 1990 was

analyzed in similar fashion. The analysis proceeded through several stages: in the first stage we examined for differences between the groups on the measure of whether subjects had voted in the primary. Were subjects who watched the negative ads less likely to vote? (We limited all of the primary

72 Southeastern Political Review Vot. 25 No. I

analysis to those in the experimental and control groups who were locally registered to vote and who did not vote using an absentee ballot.) In the second stage of the analysis we focused upon the effect of the subjects’ interest in politics in general and the relevant campaign in particular. Guided by the Rothschild model, we sought to determine whether effects on voting turnout differed for low as opposed to high interest subjects who viewed the ads. Did low interest subjects who viewed the ads register a low turnout rate while high interest subjects showed mixed results’? In the third stage of the analysis we tested whether those with low interest were more likely to change their behavior without showing evidence that they had changed their attitude. Were low interest subjects who watched the ads more likely to fail to vote even after expressing a high intention to do so? Were high interest subjects with a high intention to vote just as likely to vote even after being exposed to the ads?

To test H1, the first stage of analysis compared turnout rates for the experimental and control groups and is presented by year in Table 1.

The turnout rate was lower for the experimental group in two ofthe three administrations of the experiment, although it was significant only in 1986 at alpha = . l . This was the U.S. Senate campaign between Republican Henson Moore and Democrat John Breaux, who was the eventual winner. The BushDukakis presidential campaign was the lone exception to the hypothesis. In that election, the experimental group exhibited high turnout. When the data sets were combined the difference between the groups is in the predicted direction but does not achieve statistical significance.

Table 1 Voting Turnout Rates, in Percentages, for Subjects

Registered to Vote, by Group and Yeara

Voted Controlb Experimental‘ 1986 Yes 58% 3 9yo

(n=3 1) (n=28) p=.088Sd

1988 Yes 57% (n=63)

I990 Yes 51% (1147)

63% (n=55)

(n=58) 4 5%

Combined Yes 55% 51% (n= 1 4 1) (n=141)

.Data reported here are the percentage of those who reported voting in the election, excluding those who voted

%ose who did not watch the negative ads. %ose who did watch the negative ads. dDifferences between groups were tested using ANOVA for proportions with pooled estimate of standard error

absentee

(Loether and McTavish 1988,575-579). This procedure was used on all reported tables.


As a test of H2, registered subjects' turnout was controlled for level of interest in politics. The four level of interest categories were combined into two-no/little interest and moderatehigh interest. This was to insure that there were sufficient numbers ofcases in the cells for data analysis purposes. The results are reported in Table 2.

Among low interest subjects, turnout rates for members of the experimental group were lower in each of the three experiments. However, differences were not statistically significant, except for the experiment conducted in 1986, even when turnout rates from the three years were combined.

In 1988, experimental subjects with a high or moderate interest in the 1988 election reported turning out at a higher rate (significant at p = .0465) than subjects in the control group with a similar level of interest in politics. In the 1986 and 1990 elections, subjects in the experimental group turned out at lower levels (though the differences were not statistically significant).

In the final stage of the analysis we examined those who had a high intention to vote (and who were registered), controlling for their level of

Table 2 Voting Turnout Rates, in Percentages, by Group and Year,

Controlled for Interest in Politics

Voted Controld ExDerimentale Condition: LOW INTERESP

1986' Yes 71% 0% (n=7) (n=3) p=.O188

(n=25) (n=26)

(n=23) (n=16)

(1148) (n=42)

1988 Yes 48% 46%

1990 Yes 5 7% 5 0%

Combined Yes 54% 44%

Condition: HIGH INTERESTb 1986' Yes 64% 50%

(n=14) (n=14)

(n=26) (n=26) p=.0465

(n=l5) (n=26)

(n=55) (n=66)

1988 Yes 65% 85%

1990 Yes 73% 69%


Those who responded that they had little or no interest in following politics. bThose who responded that they had moderate or high interest in following politics. 'h 1986 the measure of involvement was the level of attachment that the subjects reported for a political party.

Those who signified low attachment or independent status were characterized as low involvement, etc. dThose who did not watch the negative ads. Those who did watch the negative ads.


interest in politics. This is a test of the third hypothesis. First of all, we found that 52% of low interest experimental subjects indicated that they intended to vote, compared to 40% of low interest control subjects. Thus, there is directional support for the notion that intention to vote was stimulated by viewing the ads for low interest subjects. Recall that Rothschild predicted that low interest subjects would change their behavior prior to changing their attitude. Furthermore, the direction of the change is not as predicted. Among low interest, high vote intention, experimental subjects the reported turnout rate was 64% compared to 8 1 % for the control group, significant at p = .0618 (Table 3).

The findings in this table also support Rothschild's model in their direction in the low interest condition. Experimental subjects with a high or moderate intention to vote but with little or no interest in politics were less likely to indicate that they had actually voted, a finding that was significant only for the combined data. Low turnout occurred even though subjects' intention to vote was high after viewing the negative ads, which is consistent with the view that these subjects changed their behavior prior to changing their attitude.

Table 3 Voting Turnout Rates, in Percentages, by Group and Year for High

Vote Intention Subjects Only, Controlled for Level of Political Interest

Voted Controld Experimentale Condition: LOW INTERESP

1986' - - 1988 Yes 83% 65%

1990 Yes 79% 64%


(n=12) (n=17)

(n=14) (n=ll)

(n=26) (n=28) p=.0618 Condition: HIGH MTERESTb

1986' - - 1988 Yes 75% 89%

1990 Yes 77Yo 75%


(n-24) (n=l8)

(n=13) (n=24)

(n=37) (n=42) p . 0 9 ~~ ~

%ose who responded that they had little or no interest in following politics. bThose who responded that they had moderate or high interest in following politics. 'In the 1986 research no measure of vote intention was included in the questionnaire. dThose who did not watch the negative ads. "Those who did watch the negative ads.


Among those who ranked themselves high or moderate in their intention to vote as well as high to moderate in their level of political interest, experimental subjects were more likely to report that they had voted after viewing the treatment ads. In its direction, this finding supports the Roth- schild-based hypothesis that turnout rates would not drop for experimental subjects compared to control subjects in the high interest condition the way they would in the low interest condition. Indeed the finding that turnout actually went up for high interest subjects exposed to the ads goes beyond the Rothschild model and demands an alternative explanation. On the other hand, about one-third of the experimental subjects in this category reported only no or low intention to vote after viewing the treatment providing some support for the “information seeking” hypothesis.

DISCUSSION Borrowing from Rothschild and others, we hypothesized that viewing

negative campaign ads would have the following effects: (1) Viewers’ turnout rates would be lower than turnout rates of those who had not viewed the ads. (2) The lower turnout effect would be greater for persons who indicated that they had a low interest in politics than it would be for those who indicated that they had a high interest in politics. (3) Low interest subjects would be less likely than high interest subjects to change their attitude (measured as intention to vote) prior to changing their behavior.

Generally, there is little statistical support for a broad range negative effect on voter turnout resulting from negative advertising. While there are some differences in the predicted direction between the control group and the experimental group, they are not statistically significant even with a large number of cases. However, Rothschild argues that intense political campaigns, such as those occurring at the presidential level, are unique and that researchers may want to treat them as separate cases. In other words, the attention given to presidential campaigns by the media, and the interest evidenced by the relatively high levels of voter turnout combine to make presidential campaigns unusual. With this in mind we conducted a separate analysis for the U.S. Senate replications. Doing so we found support for Hypothesis 1 (p = -0721) in the predicted direction.

Of those two U.S. Senate related experiments, the 1986 replication provided the strongest uncontrolled support for H1. In that election the Democratic and Republican candidates for the open Louisiana Senate seat vacated by Russell Long were unencumbered by major issues or heavy media scrutiny. Additionally, the candidates did not inundate the airwaves with negative advertising, though the spots were common enough for us to

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find sufficient examples for the research. In this context the treatment was apparently strong enough to influence subjects in the expected direction.

The 1990 findings were less supportive of the general effects hypothesis (HI) than those ofthe 1986 findings, but turnout did decline slightly among members of the experimental group in that replication as well. The 1990 campaign, like that in 1986, was a U.S. Senate race in Louisiana, but differed in a number of significant ways. In the 1990 campaign, negative advertising was sponsored by only one candidate (J. Bennett Johnston, the incumbent). As a former leader of the KKK, David Duke, Johnston’s opponent, seemed eager to appear “mainstream” and “responsible.” As a result he avoided the use of negative ads. Johnston’s negative ads appeared late in the campaign and reminded voters of Duke’s KKK affiliation. This set of facts alone argues for the potential efficacy of the treatment. How- ever, as noted above, it also meant that we had to search for treatment ads outside of the relevant campaign, in effect weakening the treatment.

Nonetheless, the ads sponsored by Johnston apparently were not suc- cessful in creating negative evaluations of Duke, as he ended the campaign with a higher percentage of the vote than pre-election polls had indicated that he would. What explanation can be offered to explain the apparent failure of Johnston’s negative media campaign? The interest generated by a serious challenge for a major political office in Louisiana by the former leader of the KKK probably overshadowed the effects of Johnston’s ads as well as the treatment. Recalling that about one-half of the subjects in our research were African-American students (mirroring the proportion of the statewide electorate that is black), we note that the black community was highly motivated against the Duke candidacy. Furthermore, using the Reagan message of welfare reform, Duke had also stimulated strong support among a large proportion of the white electorate, many of whom appeared to be as highly committed to his candidacy as African-Americans were opposed to it. The white support that Duke generated was especially strong in north Louisiana, the area ofthe state in which the research was conducted.

By comparison, the general findings from 1988, a presidential election year, support the notion that negative advertising had the effect of reinforc- ing voter interest and turnout. Referring to the negative but highly stimu- lating politics of the late 1800s may help us understand these findings. As noted earlier, McGerr (1 986) has observed that negative advertising was common in the late 1 SOOs, a time when American voter participation was at its apex. According to McGerr, party loyalists commonly formed march- ing clubs and party organizations, which undertook a variety of activities, particularly at election time. Competition, verbal as well as physical, between these groups as they marched the streets prior to elections was


undoubtedly common. Negative campaigning was one facet of that competition, and provided additional fuel for the election fire, while simultane- ously stirring the campaign pot. The attachment that voters felt toward their political party was quite strong in the late 1800s.

Party was an essentially simple creed, but one woven deeply and intricately into the pattern ofNorthern society. Partisanship entailed more than attachment to a particular political organization. For mid-nineteenth-century Northerners, party became a natural lens through which to view the world .... Most men found it second nature ... to imagine a black-and-white world of absolutes ...( and) made little distinction between fact and opinion .... This was a subjective way of apprehending the world, with party at its center, the basic principle of public life (McGerr 1986, 13).

In the intense atmosphere surrounding a presidential election, even one with relatively low voter turnout as occurred in 1988, negative advertising may influence voters to higher levels of involvement, much as it did in the late 1800s. This also helps us to understand the findings of Tables 2 and 3, as high interest experimental subjects in 1988 were significantly more likely to report that they had voted.

Voters who maintain a high interest in politics are like sports enthusiasts in some ways, and presidential campaigns receive much the same level and types of media interest and coverage as do the Super Bowl competitors or the “Final Four” in college basketball. In that atmosphere televised negative advertising represents the figurative blows of the political pugilists. This is most true of presidential elections and less true of lower level elections. A fierce competition is underway pitting the highest achievers in political life against each other. The media and the public give it their closest attention. While the level of media interest is neither as intense nor as biased today as it was 100 years ago, for presidential elections it is probably sufficient to generate increased interest among partisans and those with a heightened interest in politics.

While high interest experimental subjects were stimulated to participate in 1988 their low interest counterparts were not. In fact there was virtually no evidence of differences between the control and experimental groups in 1988 in Table 1 . In a separate analysis of variance using only the low interest subjects from 1986 and 1990, the Senate election years, we found that the differences between the control groups and the experimental groups were not quite significant (p = .103). This was true even though the strongest statistical support for Rothschild’s model is found in the 1986 data in Table 2. Thus we must conclude that mixed findings were obtained for Hypothesis 2.

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Hypothesis 3 states that low interest experimental subjects, who indicated a high intention to vote, would be more likely to drop out of the electorate than their control group counterparts. For the two years in which we included a question on the protocol about vote intention-1988 and 1990-this proved to be true. For high interest experimental subjects who expressed a high intention to vote there was evidence that they were in fact stimulated to pursue their intention by the negative ads. This finding is consistent with the explanation presented above that these more enthusiastic voters were aroused by the ads and went to the polls to register their ballot.

CONCLUSION There is some support for a negativity effect resulting from attack

campaign advertising, but there is also some support for a stimulus effect, particularly in a presidential election for high interest voters. The attention given to the level of interest in politics by Rothschild is apparently deserved, as is the attention given to election characteristics. The greatest negative effect is found in that segment of the population that has been most likely to withdraw from politics in the first place: those with low interest or involvement. This is a class of citizens which seems to be growing in proportion to the decline of strong partisans. It would be hard to pinpoint the central organizing identification that Americans have today, but it seems clear that political partisanship does not play such arole for the vast majority of Americans. This is exemplified in Louisiana, as in much of the rest of the South, where candidates and voters alike are shedding their longterm attachments to the Democratic party. As one stark example of this pattern, the sitting governor of Louisiana changed his party allegiance from Demo- crat to Republican on the day he qualified to run for governor in 1995. While political scientists often categorize voters according to the level of their partisanship, the overall support Americans give to parties has undoubtedly declined, according to McGerr. This decline is apparently having a deleterious effect upon their participation levels as well. This interpretation also seems consistent with recent findings of Ansolabehere and Iyengar (1 996) that any negativity effects are likely to be greatest on independents.

Our findings from this field experiment are not conclusive but provide limited evidence that negative advertising is doing more than just helping one candidate or another to win political office. The overall systemic effects are not completely clear, but indicate that some voters are being turned off, while others, in special cases, are being reinforced in their intention and behavior. The magnitude of those effects on the general population remains to be shown.


APPENDM

The Ads for the 1986 Experiment Two ads were sponsored by Henson Moore, Republican candidate for

the U.S. Senate, Louisiana. Major themes were that John Breaux (the Democratic candidate) was a political crony of then Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards (who was under criminal indictment for fraud); that Breaux received campaign donations from the co-defendants in the Edwards cor- ruption trial; that Breaux was part of the old political “empire/machine;” that Breaux’s support came from parishes with illegal voters on the rolls.

Two ads were sponsored by John Breaux, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, Louisiana. These ads consisted of interviews with Louisiana voters, who said that Henson Moore was attempting to “buy” the election with “outside money;” that he was trying to “steal” the election by removing Louisiana voters from the registration lists.

One ad was sponsored by Bill Clements, Republican candidate for governor, Texas. A sarcastic voice-over ad asked, “What’s up with Mark White?” (White was the incumbent governor.) Listed were 15 items that were “up,” including taxes, and ending with a pointed reminder that White’s salary as governor was up.

The Ads for the 1988 Experiment Two ads were sponsored by the Bush campaign. The first was an ad

that pictured Boston Harbor filled with trash and covered with industrial products. The voice-over noted that Dukakis did nothing while governor to clean up the harbor and that it was the dirtiest harbor in America. The second was an ad in which prisoners filed through a revolving gate (into prison and immediately out again) which represented, in the commercial, the weekend furlough program that existed in Massachusetts during the Dukakis administration. Both commercials ended with the reminder that “Dukakis promises to do for America what he’s done for Massachusetts.”

Two ads were sponsored by Dukakis. These two ads were variations on a theme. The theme was displayed at the opening of the commercials in the title, “The Packaging of George Bush.” Both pictured the proverbial “smoke filled room” where the presumed Bush media experts were worried about how they were going to handle the issue of the link between Bush and Manual Noriega. In the second, the Dukakis campaign attacked the Reagan record on the environment (reminding viewers about the environmental legacy of Secretary of Interior James Watts). Both commercials concluded with the statement, “They are trying to sell you a package; wouldn’t you rather choose a president?”

80 Southeastern Political Review VOI! 25 No. I

The Ads for the 1990 Experiment Two ads were sponsored by the Leo McCarthy campaign. The first

accused Pete Wilson of not supporting the environment; that corporate sponsors were paying for Wilson’s ads that claimed he (Wilson) had a strong environmental record. The ad noted that the Congressional Record said that Wilson had voted against major environmental legislation. The second, which was a counter-charge to a Wilson rebuttal of the first, made similar charges and gave the dates of the votes. This ad used sources from the Federal Election Commission to support charges about Wilson’s campaign supporters. Both ended by noting that “Pete Wilson is a senator for them, Leo McCarthy is a senator for us.

Two ads were sponsored by Pete Wilson. The first ad was a rebuttal of the McCarthy charges about Wilson’s record on the environment, noting that Wilson voted for all the environmental legislation. The ad ended by noting that “The truth is, you won’t hear the truth from Leo McCarthy.” The second ad sponsored by Wilson attacked McCarthy for his record on crime and judicial appointments, noting that McCarthy helped keep crimi- nals in our neighborhoods, not in prison where they belonged (the scene depicted during this ad was an empty prison cell).

NOTES The authors acknowledge the work of William Richey who made a

‘A roorback, according to Webster’s Dictionary (1971), is a defamatory

significant contribution to this research in its early stages.

falsehood published for political effect usually before an election.

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election related behavioral outcomes: televised negative campaign messages

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