With general elections soon approaching, more and more political campaign commercials are flooding our televisions. While my political views differ in a myriad of ways from the views of my parents, one thing we can agree on is our strong disliking of negative campaign commercials. These commercials do not focus on the positives of the sponsoring candidate, or on the different issues at hand, but instead the focus is placed on vilifying the opponent. These negative campaign tactics have been at play by politicians for centuries, however, political advertisements have gotten far more negative in the last 30 years of the 20th century, making its effects important for us to understand (Gruman et al., 2017).
Interestingly, as negative campaign ads increase in the United States, the voter turnout rate decreases. Because correlation does not imply causation, a number of experimental studies have targeted this issue to determine what effects these ads do have on voter turnout. In one experiment, real advertisements that were created for Californian elections were used. The results of this study revealed consumption of these negative ads did decrease people’s intentions to vote. Other studies demonstrated that when both candidates use these negative campaign tactics, then both candidates were viewed as less desirable. One explanation for this is that negative campaign tactics give viewers the sense that, when having to choose between the candidates, they are in a lose-lose situation (Gruman et al., 2017). This aligns with a common phrase I’ve heard during election time- having to choose “the lesser of two evils”. Naturally, individuals do not like being placed in these types of situations, therefore furthering their desire to distance themselves from politics and the polls.
Circling back to the cognitive dissonance theory may shed more light onto why many voters want to disengage after viewing negative political campaign ads. The cognitive dissonance theory explains that people want to maintain consistency between their thoughts, knowledge, actions, etc., and that there is a mental toll we feel when we face internal contradictions instead. Further, when we experience this mental toll, we are most likely to ease this conflict in the easiest way possible for ourselves (Gruman et al., 2017). When looking at the instance of decreased voter turnout after viewing negative campaign ads, we can speculate on possible instances of cognitive dissonance in this scenario. One example of this could be the conflicting thoughts of, “It’s important to vote”, “I want to make the right decision”, and “Both options are bad”. When faced with these thoughts, one could either take hours to thoroughly research the candidates in order to be confident of the better choice, or they could simply decide that other people will vote and it’s not really important that they do. According to the theory, people are more likely to choose not to vote in this scenario as it is the option that requires the least amount of work for themselves. Perhaps, given this theory, it could be hypothesized that if people are first educated on the candidates and confident on their decision, then they would be less negatively influenced by the viewing of negative political campaign ads as they would be less likely to believe both candidates are bad options.
It is important for American voters to be aware of these powers at play with elections drawing near. Personally, having these commercials pop up uninvited as I’m relaxing watching the Eagles beat the Cowboys makes me want to shut the TV off and not turn it back on until the elections are over. However, I think it is also interesting that I am more irritated by these general election campaign advertisements than I was during our last presidential election. This may be because I am less exposed to, and less educated on, these candidates which increases my own cognitive dissonance by making me more susceptible to the confusion and mistrust the negative campaign commercials cause.
Reference:
Gruman, J.A. Schneider, F.W. & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Great post! The fear of flying is a great example of how an individual falls into the concept of an availability heuristic. Even though I am generally not terrified of flying, whenever I hear bad news about a plane crash, I find myself becoming more anxious and worried before traveling on a flight. Frequent exposure to plane crash depictions in the media, such as from the news or movies, makes us believe or imagine that this can actually happen to us if we are unlucky. As you mentioned, even though the statistics show that the probability of death from a car accident is far more prevalent than death from a plane accident, it is true that people tend to fear plane accidents more than riding cars. I agree that media tremendously affects our thoughts and behaviors by making an issue more salient, thus attracting more attention and increasing the likelihood of recall. This reminded me of Bandura‘s social cognitive theory, which explains why people are more drawn to violent media and likelier to imitate them. According to this theory, people tend to pay attention and are likely to remember behaviors that are silent and attractive (Gruman et al., 2017). Similarly, availability heuristics suggest that anything that makes an issue more salient and attractive to people increases the probability that people will remember it and emphasize it as an important issue (Gruman et al., 2017).
References
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Gruman, J., Schneider, F., & Coutts, L. (Eds.) (2017). Applied social psychology. SAGE Publications, Inc, https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781071800591