Together, these two articles are a must-read. They help explain why genes and other biological factors might influence our political leanings. Biological factors (especially genetics) are the dominant cause of these Big Five personality traits, which then remain stable throughout life. In turn, these Big Five traits influence our political leanings (Gerber et al.) and our political activity (Mondak et al.).

The Big Five personality traits

Both articles adopt the “Big Five” approach that, they claim, has become widely accepted among psychologists. Quoting two psychologists, Gerber et al. sum up these big five traits as follows:

The Big Five - Gerber et al., pg 113

As Mondak et al. note, these Big Five traits are often summed up as OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (where neurotic is the opposite of emotionally stable).

Effects of personality on ideology

Gerber et al. argue that these Big Five personality traits influence our political leanings. Each trait may have different effects on our economic ideology (free market vs interventionist) as well as on our social ideology (pro-choice/pro-equality vs pro-life/pro-tradition). They expect four of the five traits to influence ideology. The only exception is extroversion, which they expect to influence political participation (as Mondak et al. show) but not ideology. Their predictions:

Using a very large sample drawn from the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project (CCAP), the authors confirm most of these predictions. I’ve pasted below their Figure 1. All hypotheses are confirmed. Their only error was in predicting that emotional stability would cause folks to lean left on social issues. As it turns out, emotionally stable folks lean right on both dimensions and neurotic folks lean left on both dimensions. So we learn that Conservatives are hard-working, organized, closed-minded, and emotionally stable. Liberals are lazy, disorganized, open-minded, and neurotic. Let’s see how the punditocracy spins that one. The effects of personality rival the effects of education and income.

Figure 1 from Gerber et al. 2010

Contextual effects

Gerber et al. also argue that these effects can be contextual, although they seem less committed to this possibility than Mondak et al, for whom environmental interactions were a critical part of the story. In particular, they argue that race might matter. For example, blacks tend to view poverty as caused by systematic forces rather than by laziness; as such, conscientiousness may have a weaker pull among blacks toward economic liberalism. Likewise, blacks tend to be surrounded by liberalism; thus, “openness” might actually lead blacks to question the liberalism that surrounds them rather than pulling them toward the left. Gerber et al. find support for these contextual interactions with a series of figures like the one below. When I look at these figures, though, it doesn’t look so much like an interaction to me–rather, it looks like it’s just harder to predict ideology using personality among blacks than it is among whites.

Figure 2a from Gerber et al 2010

Comment and Criticism

This article, together with the similar one by Mondak et al., is a must-read. I’m not sure whether I’m persuaded yet that I need to demand a personality index on every poll I work with. But these two articles introduce us to a new psychological approach that I’m sure we’ll see much more of.

A few years ago,  Alford, Funk, and Hibbing challenged that environmental approach by showing that political orientations are genetically transmitted. Later work by Fowler and his colleagues has confirmed that our political leanings are genetically influenced. But although this genetic research has drawn our attention toward biological influences, it has not produced a theory that can explain why biology matters.

The goal of Mondak et al.’s recent APSR article is to develop a theory that can link these genetic studies with the more widespread environmental studies. The figure below (from the article) summarizes the theory. Note that they expect neither environmental factors nor personality traits to have much of a direct effect on political behavior. Instead, most of the effect is interactive. For example, if a person has an extroverted personality type, and if a form of political participation is social (e.g. a caucus as opposed to donating to a candidate via internet), then you will expect that person to participate. Here’s the figure:

Figure 1 from Mondak et al 2010

By “personality,” the authors refer to the “Big Five” personality index widely used within psychological circles. The Big Five traits include these:

• Openness to new experience. Folks who seek new experiences and information as opposed to folks content with their lot.
• Conscientiousness. Organized, hard-working folks as opposed to lazy or sloppy people.
• Extroversion vs introversion.
• Agreeableness. Warm, kind, sympathetic, generous people as opposed to unkind, distant, cold, miserly people.
• Emotional stability vs neuroticism. Calm, relaxed, stable as opposed to tense, nervous.

The authors stress a single main point: We cannot understand the effects of personality without accounting for the environment, and we cannot understand the effects of the environment without accounting for personality. They illustrate this argument by showing that certain types of political participation can be predicted well by interacting personality traits with environmental variables, but the empirical analysis seems peripheral here. As I understand it, the main goal of this paper is just to get political scientists thinking about the importance of personality.

They expect this personality research to supplant genetic research. The genetic research has shown an interesting relationship between biological factors and political behavior but without providing any sort of theoretical mechanism. By contrast, psychologists have shown that genes and other biological factors “account for most of the variance in personality traits” (p 89), but personality traits are the proximate cause of later behaviors.

Comments and Criticism

These are novel arguments, and I look forward to seeing how they influence future behavioral research. At the same time, I find myself wondering how much there is to gain by looking at personality. The authors have argued that personality can influence political behaviors (turnout and other political participation). But the genetic literature has shown that genetics influence political dispositions (liberal vs conservative, Republican vs Democratic). If Mondak et al. really want to show that personality is the real (proximate) cause of anything “caused” by genetics, then they need to show that personality influences political dispositions as well.

Update: See my review of a study that does just that–Gerber et al.’s “Personality and Political Attitudes.”

More accurately, we don’t know which “why” is the real “why.” Folks who have published evidence of these perceptual biases have also offered lots of different reasons for them, and we have yet to see research that sorts those various reasons out.

In the current issue of AJPS, Gerber and Huber write an article that claims to do exactly that: Test the possible explanations of these perceptual biases against one another. At least, that’s what you would think their article does after reading the introduction. Once you get into it, you find that they really only test two of the possible theories against each other. The remaining theories that have been suggested go untested, meaning they may or may not be true.

Briefly, these are the six theories that have been given to explain why Republicans and Democrats rate the economy differently. I use boldface to indicate Gerber and Huber’s preferred label for each theory:

• Endogenous partisanship (i.e. reverse causation). Perhaps people shift their partisan leanings over time as they observe how each party manages the economy.²
• Divergent criteria. Perhaps voters evaluate Democratic-led governments on a different basis than they evaluate Republican-led governments (e.g. giving greater weight to unemployment relative to inflation).
• Partisan cheerleading. Maybe Democrats just like to cheer on Democratic-led governments by claiming that the economy is doing better when Democrats are in power.
• Selective exposure. Maybe Democrats and Republicans experience different economic realities (e.g. work in different sectors) or read different newspapers.
• Selected perception. Maybe Democrats and Republicans mentally screen out negative information about their party while uncritically accepting positive information.³
• Partisan perceptions (i.e. beliefs about confidence). Maybe voters believe that their party’s politicians are more competent at managing the economy, so they assume the economy will perform better when their party is in power. The logic here is very different from “endogenous partisanship”; see below. (This is Gerber and Huber’s preferred theory.)

Method and results

Gerber and Huber do not test all of these theories. Rather, they design a test that holds all of these possible mechanisms constant except two: Partisan cheerleading and partisan perceptions. They use CCES interviews from immediately before and immediately after the 2006 Congressional elections, which produce a surprise turnover of both the House and the Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats.

These pre- and post-election interviews were only a few weeks apart. During that time, not much changed in the real economy (as measured by stock prices, oil prices, inflation, unemployment, and so on) or in the reported economy (based on a comparison of NY Times and Wall Street Journal economic coverage). As such, Gerber and Huber argue (persuasively) that divergent criteria, selective exposure, and selective perception cannot explain any differences in the pre- and post-election interviews. To control for the “endogenous partisanship” theory, they use a panel of the same respondents for both interviews, enabling them to hold partisanship constant across the two waves.

These methods leave only two theories capable of explaining any shift in respondent evaluations of the national economy that occurred between the pre- and post-interviews: Cheerleading and partisan perceptions. Let’s be clear here: Of the 6 possible causal mechanisms that Gerber and Huber identify, they test only 2 of them.

They argue that they can differentiate between these last two theories by looking at two sets of dependent variables. Either theory would predict that respondents would adjust their perceptions of the national economy in a partisan manner following the election: Democrats would become more optimistic, Republicans would become less optimistic. But for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, Gerber and Huber argue that only the “partisan perceptions” theory would also predict that respondents would adjust their nonpolitical perceptions (e.g. general level of happiness, expected level of Christmas/vacation spending).

Sure enough, Gerber and Huber find that Democrats became much more optimistic about the national economy in the post-election survey; Republicans did the opposite. But they also found that Democrats became more optimistic about their personal lives. Because of that latter finding, they conclude that “partisan cheerleading” does not explain the results, but “partisan perceptions” does.

What it means

Here’s what they say it means:

… partisanship leads to a general attribution of desirable traits to those who share one’s partisanship (Conover and Feldman 1982). A similar phenomenon emerges in psychology research, in which individuals are prone to falsely attribute unobserved positive qualities to individuals whom share characteristics with them while falsely attributing unobserved negative qualities to individuals whom they do not feel warmly toward. While there is no doubt that some citizens have sophisticated and deeply held views about economic policy…, for many Americans, there is no rational basis to suppose that one party is better than the other at managing the economy. If such positive or negative traits are attributed to the parties nonetheless, it could generate the patterns of economic assessments and behaviors observed here.

Take that, Anthony Downs.

Parting shots

I have trouble with this claim: “For many Americans, there is no rational basis to suppose that one party is better than the other at managing the economy.” If that’s true, is our entire democratic process a farce? We can probably all agree that Democrats prefer more government services while Republicans are torn between wanting low taxes and wanting a ridiculously large defense budget. If nothing else, don’t those decisions about tax rates and government spending influence the economy in some way?

At the same time, I don’t question their broader point at all. It seems downright likely that a voter would tend to think more highly of a politician’s capabilities for the simple reason that the voter and politician are on the same “team.” (Case in point: The Robber’s Cave experiment.)

So I’m left wondering: Can’t we have both? Isn’t it possible that parties do manage the economy differently, and also that voters have biased beliefs about each party’s capabilities?

I’m also a bit disappointed by the bait and switch in this article. The authors had me expecting a test of all 6 theories listed above. Instead, they tested only two, confirming one and weakly rejecting the other. But although the scope of this article isn’t as broad as the authors pitch it as, the article is nevertheless excellent. The methods are precise and enable an accurate test of two theories. Let’s hope that future research can do just as good a job of testing the other possible theories.

The question: How do candidates decide what to emphasize in their campaign communications? When do they go negative? When do they stick to the issues? When do they emphasize their experience and community ties? And given how many thousands of campaigns are run around this country each election cycle, how can we possible study all this?

There has been some previous work on this question, but most of it has looked at television ads or media coverage. Both sources have flaws. Television ads and media coverage are more common in the most competitive races, since safe incumbents don’t spend money on ads. They are also more common in Senate races than House races. How, then, can we use television ads to see how rhetoric is different in competitive races or in House races than in other races?

In a recent article, Druckman et al. avoid these problems by looking instead at rhetoric in Congressional campaign websites in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Although not all candidates had websites in 2002, by 2004 and 2006 just about every major-party Congressional candidate had a website. And what do we learn?

Findings

• Challengers are far more likely than incumbents to use negative attacks (whether personal attacks or issue contrasts) than incumbents.
• Challengers are more likely than incumbents to use “Web 2.0″ technologies that enable visitors to create content (e.g. via commenting on the site).
• Challengers are more likely than incumbents to stress their party affiliation and to bring up issues that their party “owns,” particularly if the incumbent is not a member of the district’s majority party.²
• Incumbents are more likely than challengers to emphasize their experience, their long history in the district, and the specific benefits (pork) they have provided to the district. This is especially true in hotly contested districts; elsewhere, incumbents are unlikely to put much effort at all into their websites.

Theory

Druckman and his colleagues tell a compelling story to explain these findings. Briefly, and with considerable re-interpretation by me:

• Going negative and enabling interactive Web 2.0 technologies are risky. Since incumbents enjoy significant electoral advantages³, they feel no need to take on these risks. But challengers seeking to overcome these advantages may find these risks worth taking. Thus, challengers are more likely to pepper their sites with negative comments and also to provide forums, wikis, or commenting interfaces.
• Partisanship is often as valuable a cue to voters as incumbency. Thus, challengers make a partisan case against incumbents who belong to the district’s minority party.
• Incumbents want to do what they can to strengthen their incumbency advantage. Thus, an emphasis on talking about things that only incumbents have (experience, credit claiming opportunities, etc).

Importance

The authors’ biggest contribution is their thorough, thoughtful, and insightful use of campaign websites. This data source allows for a near-universal (especially after 2002), unfiltered look at what candidates want voters to hear. And this method does, indeed, yield different results than we would find if the authors had relied on more traditional data sources, such as TV ads or media coverage. When the authors restrict their analysis to those races that had significant ad buys or media coverage, many of their important results disappear into statistical oblivion. The authors have identified a cheap, easy way to capture a fuller sample of current campaign messages.

Quibbles and parting jabs

I like this article, but the authors need to be careful not to oversell their contribution.⁴ Reliance on websites as a true measure of what messages campaigns are actually pushing may not be as much a panacea as claimed.

First: Who reads campaign websites? The authors use a survey of campaign web developers to show who, in the developers’ minds, reads the websites. Even the developers concede that the main target audience–swing voters–is the least likely of all to actually visit the site. But remember that the web developers probably dramatically overestimate the importance of their product. How else would they sell their services? Consider the websites of two prominent members of Congress: Eric Cantor (Republican Whip) and Jim Clyburn (Democratic Whip).⁵ Alexa.com is a free service that tracks how many people view websites.⁶ Alexa reports that so few people visit Cantor’s (report) and Clyburn’s (report) sites that it can’t even provide an estimate of their reach.⁷ So, I ask: Do we have evidence that anybody actually reads these websites?

Druckman et al. would probably counter that it doesn’t matter whether anybody visits the site. What matters is that the site summarizes the campaign messages being used by the candidate generally, both online, in ads, and in appearances. Well…

Second: Do candidates actually push the same messages in the real world as in their websites? You can fit many, many campaign messages into a website. You can only fit a small handful into a single ad, appearance, or mailer. Perhaps candidates intentionally place their most provocative messages on their websites to avoid having to say them to their opponent’s face during a debate. We saw this in the 2008 presidential race. Both presidential campaigns released their worst ads online only, knowing that the media would see them and relay the attack’s message to conflict-hungry viewers. This was a hands-off way for candidates to get negative messages out into the blogosphere without having to push the messages personally. If that happens in Congressional races too, then this study is flawed–perhaps deeply.

But again. I like the article. It makes a fabulous contribution. The authors do as most of us do, however, by overselling their point.

Schlesinger’s feat inspires the present study. The authors argue that there are cycles in American ideology. Roughly every 12 to 15 years since 1854, American voters have oscillated between preferring Democrats or Republicans in national office, with a complete cycle every 25 to 30 years.²

The basis of this claim is nakedly empirical. In their first table, the authors perform elementary run tests to demonstrate that “both the House and the Senate have far fewer runs (i.e., fewer partisan switches) than” randomness would allow.³ That is, one party tends to control the House (or Senate) over several elections, then the other party gets a turn.

It’s not enough to show that changes in partisan control are non-random, though, to explain Schlesinger’s uncanny predictions. So the authors turn to a specialized technique, spectral analysis, to see whether there is a consistent cycle length causing these runs. They analyze House, Senate, and presidential elections separately, then all together. All four analyses yield a consistent result: A half-cycle (i.e. change in partisan dominance) of around 13 years, a full cycle (i.e. return to original party) of around 26.

This empirical finding influences our understanding of partisan realignment in two ways. First, and most importantly, it revives a literature severely criticized by Mayhew (2002). Realignments do occur. Nonetheless (and second), the authors carefully point out that their evidence suggests a sort of tidal ebb and flow, not a punctuated equilibrium (or “tipping point”) model in which realignments occur suddenly following a “critical election.”⁴

They explain these findings with a formal model that has four main moving parts:

1. Parties prefer to promote policies as close to their ideal point as possible;
2. To win election, parties will move as little as necessary toward the median voter;
3. The party in power enjoys certain advantages of incumbency that shield it on election day;
4. Voters tend to react negatively to the ruling party’s proposals. The median voter becomes more conservative when liberals are in charge, and more liberal when conservatives are in charge. (See Stimson 1991 and 2004.)

The first two considerations create a centrifugal-centripetal tension, simultaneously pulling the party toward the median and toward extremism. Over time, the second consideration overpowers the first.

The latter two points also conflict, reflecting a tension among voters between valuing incumbency and desiring change. When a party first acquires power, its newfound incumbency advantage helps it at first. But as time goes on, the advantages of incumbency are overwhelmed by changes in the electorate’s mood.

Together, these two pairs of considerations create a cyclical pressure.

Political scientists have fretted over that possibility for decades. The first major findings found that mass media had “minimal effects” on public opinion.¹ More recently, scholars have found that political communications can influence opinion in a few ways. Of particular importance for this study, some scholars have reported that politicians and mass media can influence public opinion by choosing how to frame a story. Is protecting rainforests about indigenous rights or environmental concerns?² Are urban growth limits about protecting greenbelts or attracting greenbacks?³

Chong and Druckman’s argument, in essence, is that previous studies have used methodologies that exaggerate the real-world importance of framing. Overwhelmingly, previous experiments have tested the effect of exposing people to a single frame (on one side of the issue) or none at all (the control group). These studies have found strong framing effects.

By contrast, Chong and Druckman develop two frames–one strong, one weak–on each side of their chosen issues, for a total of four frames.⁴ They randomly assign participants to receive some combination of these frames (or, in the control group, none of them). Some receive two frames on one side of the issue; some receive a strong frame on one side, a weak frame on the other side; some receive only a single frame; and some receive both frames on one side and one on the other.

This setup mirrors real political life more closely than the single-frame studies published previously, since real politics involve multiple actors seeking to promote their view. The most interesting and important conclusions:

• Strong frames move opinion significantly. Weak frames generally did not, with some exceptions.
• A weak frame one one side opposed by a strong frame on the other produced a contrast effect; that is, respondents moved even closer to the strong frame’s view than if they had been exposed to only the strong frame. This effect was most pronounced among politically informed participants.
• Competition between strong opposing frames has a moderating effect. Rather than reject the frame that discords with the respondent’s prior views, embracing only the concordant frame, the two frames interacted to pull respondents toward an intermediate position.

The latter conclusion interested me most. With most contentious issues, there are at least two strong frames competing for recognition. In fact, the presence of two strong frames may be what makes an issue contentious in the first place. Studies that explore the effects of only a single frame, rather than examining competing frames, will therefore overstate the importance of frames.

This conclusion about moderation runs contrary to other recent research about polarization. In a literature summarized in Farhad Manjoo’s True Enough⁵, other researchers have found that experiment participants will tend to accept uncritically arguments in favor of their prior view, while searching carefully for flaws in opposing arguments. It is unclear why Chong and Druckman found opposite results.

Do we truly believe that ALL red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying road-kill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks; or that ALL blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts?¹

With that opening quotation from Dave Barry, Mutz introduces her central question: How do Americans form their opinions about their political opponents? Why can some Americans agree to disagree with their “worthy opposition” while others dismiss their political opponents as irrational lunatics?² Numerous previous studies have asked how Americans form their personal political preferences, but Mutz asks a new question. To answer it, Mutz looks carefully at the effects of political television.

In carefully crafted experiments, Mutz examines the effects of two features of political television: Its use of extreme closeups on a speaker’s face rather than on more comfortable upper-body shots, and its tendency to broadcast uncivil shouting matches instead of civil debates. Her experiments feature two actors posing as Congressional candidates, with their debate filmed twice: Both use the same script, but the uncivil one adds rude body language (eyerolling) and sarcastic asides (“You have completely missed the point here!”). Both are filmed simultaneously from both close-up and medium camera perspectives, resulting in a 2×2 treatment matrix.

As it turns out, these two variables interact to influence our attitudes about whichever “candidate” we disagree with. Mutz arrives at three primary conclusions:

1. Incivility and extreme closeups increase viewer arousal (i.e. attention and excitement).
2. In turn, increased arousal improves viewers’ recollection of the two actors’ policy arguments.
3. However, viewers had a much more negative opinion of the opposition actor if they saw the uncivil, close-in version of the debate. By contrast, seeing the civil, close-in version actually increased perceptions of opposition legitimacy relative to the control.

Thus, it appears that television could be used to increase Americans’ perceptions of their opponents, even if it doesn’t change their policy positions. For this to happen, television producers would need to show intimate (close-up) video of civil discussions. More frequently, however, we see close-up video of uncivil disputes, which has exactly the opposite effect; this effect may explain some of the recent increase in American political polarization.

These conclusions are subject to some interactions and qualifiers. Read on.

Place in the Literature

Mutz relies on previous psychological and sociological studies about personal space and arousal. However, her study could also fit into several other literatures that she alludes to with greater or lesser specificity. Most obviously, Mutz’s work fits into the literature on negative campaign advertising, although she does little to make this connection. Some studies (notably those from Ansolabehere and Iyengar) have argued that negative advertising engenders distrust and disgust among the electorate. By contrast, others have argued that negative advertising is a good thing, given that voters can glean valuable information from it (see Freedman et al. 2004). Mutz’s second and third conclusions (above) may help rectify these two positions.

Theoretical Argument

Most citizens have little reason to spend time learning about political candidates, an insight dating back to Downs (1957). However, they can rely on people or groups that they trust as “shortcuts” to acquiring the information they need (see Berelson et al. 1954, Lupia and McCubbins 1998, Page et al. 1987, and Popkin 1994).

In modern politics, televised political discourse serves as one such information shortcut. Voters can watch others engage in political debates rather than engage in them themselves. However, televised political discourse departs in two major ways from normal human discourse. First, camera angles tend to be extremely close-up–much closer than we could comfortably stand to somebody. Second, pundits are far less civil than we normally are to one another.

Previous research has told us a few things about in-your-face and uncivil interaction. First, incivility increases arousal (and attention): “Anything less is too boring to attract the attention of television audiences.” But it also rubs viewers the wrong way. Second, extreme closeness tends to magnify whatever we feel about the person we are close to; if somebody you dislike stands very close to you, you will dislike them even less.

Given these two facts, televised discourse could either increase or decrease viewers’ feelings about the opposition’s legitimacy. Mutz gives three specific hypotheses:

1. Extreme close-ups and incivility will both increase emotional arousal in viewers.
2. This increased arousal will increase how well viewers recall arguments that debate participants make.
3. Extreme close-ups will interact with incivility; “close-up camera perspectives will intensify viewers’ reactions to opposition political arguments and candidates.”

Note that the latter two hypotheses are not interesting unless the first hypothesis is correct.

Experimental Evidence

Adult volunteers watch a televised debate between two candidates in an open race for Congress in a distant state

In reality, the candidates are paid actors. They film their debate twice, using the same script both times, but in one version, they behave less civilly (rolling their eyes, interjecting comments like “You have completely missed the point here!”, and so on). Each of the two versions was shot simultaneously from both a close-up and a medium zoom. Thus, volunteers see one of four versions: Close-up/civil, close-up/uncivil, medium/civil, medium/uncivil.

Participants take a pre-test to assess their views. The previously recorded debate includes policy statements about eight separate issue areas. Mutz is primarily interested in how participants react to the “candidate” whose positions differ from the participant’s.

Experiment 1, Hypothesis 1

Using a subset of participants, experiment 1 is used to test hypothesis 1. As expected, emotional arousal (as measured by skin conductance levels) varies significantly across the four conditions. From greatest to least arousal, these is how the conditions were ranked:

1. Uncivil close-up
2. Uncivil medium
3. Civil close-up
4. Civil medium

This result confirms hypothesis 1.

Experiment 2, Hypothesis 2

In experiment 2, participants filled out a post-viewing questionnaire asking them to list all the arguments they could remember for each side of the debate. The purpose was to test hypothesis 2.

Incivility and extreme close-ups interacted. Viewers exposed to both remembered significantly more opposition arguments than viewers in the other groups.

Experiment 2, Hypothesis 3

Also in experiment 2, participants indicated on feeling thermometers their feelings toward each candidate. Mutz examines viewer polarization–that is, the difference in affect towards the preferred and opposition candidate.

Again, there was an interaction. For viewers who saw the medium-zoom, civility made no difference. But for viewers who saw the close-up version, civility decreased polarization while incivility increased it.

Mutz repeats this analysis with a different measure of opposition legitimacy: Each viewer’s evaluation of the strength of each candidate’s arguments. The same results obtained.

Final Comments

Mutz uses sound experimental methods. As with any experiment, it’s never clear how much these results translate into the real world. Still, I like this study, both for its interesting research question and its persuasive results. I would like to see these insights applied more directly to campaign advertising. Do campaign advertisers use these tactics? If so, we would expect to see close-up shots of the candidate’s opponent behaving uncivilly contrasted with close-up shots of the candidate smiling and behaving well. Presumably, this approach would increase animus toward the opponent among the candidate’s existing supporters, while decreasing dislike of the candidate among the opponent’s supporters.