Consider the Animal: Perceived Empathy and Candidate Evaluations

• In Event: Voting with All Five Senses

Abstract

Does perceived candidate empathy matter to all voters, or just to those on the left? Building on literature from electoral politics, I argue that perceived candidate empathy is important, but that Democrats and Republicans may be responsive to different elements of it. I first explore the concept of empathy to establish that it is composed of two distinct dimensions: cognitive (perspective taking) and affective (empathetic concern), going on to test it using a conjoint survey experiment with a novel design that involves a deception, as well as proxies for the dimensions that incorporate attitudes toward and relationships with
animals. I then investigate whether this multidimensional concept of empathy has different effects based on respondent party affiliation and candidate gender.
Overall, Democrats value empathetic candidates more than Republicans do; however, Republicans are more responsive to candidates who show affective empathy, while Democrats are more supportive of candidates with cognitive empathy. Furthermore, Republicans penalize female candidates with high to moderately high
levels of perceived overall empathy compared to similar male candidates; at the same time, they punish female candidates who appear to have less empathetic
concern relative to men. This presents women on the right in politics with a tough balancing act to master.

Author

• Sparsha Saha, Dr.