Positive vs Negative: Question Polarity in Voting Advice Applications: Effecting the Answers and the Advice

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Paper Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

In the design of online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), VAA builders necessarily make choices with concerning a positive (i.e. the government should allow smoking in bars) or a negative (i.e. the government should forbid smoking in bars) statement wording. We investigated whether question polarity affects the answer to VAA statements and the voting advice.
In a natural field experiment during the Dutch municipal elections of March 2014 we varied the polarity of 18 out of 30 VAA statements (N 38,758).
Analyses show a significant effect of question wording for 11 out of 18 questions. Although the direction of these effects varies, it is plausible that variation in question wording does lead to a difference in voting advice. The results of question polarity occur for a broad range of types of VAA users, which stresses the need for VAA builders to be sensitive to wording choices when designing VAAs.

Authors

• Bregje Holleman, Utrecht University

• Naomi Kamoen, Utrecht U/ Tilburg U

• Jasper van de Pol, University of Amsterdam / ASCoR

• Claes H. De Vreese, U of Amsterdam