How Bad is Bad?: Dispositional Negativity and Candidate Evaluation

• In Event: Candidate Evaluation and Vote Choice

Abstract

Numerous biases potentially influence how individuals evaluate public officials and policies. One effect, the negativity bias, exists when information about negative events or outcomes is weighted more heavily than positive information. Evidence of negativity effects has been reported extensively in research in psychology. Likewise, negativity effects have been observed with respect to multiple forms of political judgment. In this paper, we explore the possibility that individuals vary in their tendency to weight positive and negative information differently. We argue that there exists a chronic, or dispositional, tendency to focus more on positive vs. negative information. As a result, the most critical evaluations should exist among individuals who a) are exposed to negative information, and b) who have a disposition to react strongly to negative information. We test this basic framework with use of vignette experiments conducted as part of nationally-representative surveys in Costa Rica and the United States. Analyses demonstrate that individuals do differ in their characteristic tendencies toward negativity, and, most critically, that that variation moderates reactions to positive and negative information regarding the performance records of public officials.

Authors

• Jeffery Mondak

• Damarys Canache, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Mitchell A. Seligson, Vanderbilt University