Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T05:24:41.843Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Too Much an Out-Group? How Nonverbal Cues About Gender and Ethnicity Affect Candidate Support

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2016

Mauro Barisione  and
Shanto Iyengar
Mauro Barisione
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Political Sciences, Università degli studi di Milano, via Conservatorio, 7, 20122 Milano, Italy, e-mail: mauro.barisione@unimi.it
Shanto Iyengar
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, Stanford University, Encina Hall Central, Room 419, Palo Alto, California, USA, e-mail: siyengar@stanford.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous work on nonverbal cues has demonstrated the influence of candidates’ facial displays on voter preferences. However, the idea that visual cues affect political judgment by signaling the relative social solidarity (in-group vs. out-group status) between candidates and voters has received little attention. We fill this gap by experimentally manipulating facial cues associated with the physical features of gender and ethnicity (Afrocentric vs. Eurocentric-looking) and assessing their effects on candidate support in the context of the Italian 2013 general election. The experimental design is based on a CAWI post-election online survey conducted on a representative sample of Italian voters. We find that group differences between candidates and voters matter, but only among right of center voters, who respond more negatively to party candidates expressing “combined” (party x gender x ethnicity) dissimilarity. Gender- and ethnicity-based differences are, on the contrary, “assimilated” and accepted when the target candidate is from the voter's party.

Keywords

Survey experimentpolitical psychologyvoting behaviorelectoral campaignsinteraction modelsItaly
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Winter 2016 , pp. 140 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, D. and Andersen, K.. 1993. “Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership Traits.” Political Research Quarterly, 46 (3): 527–45.Google Scholar
Altemeyer, B. 1981. Right-wing Authoritarianism. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.Google Scholar
Barisione, M. 2015. “Political Leadership.” In International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, ed. Mazzoleni, G.. MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brambor, T., Clark, W., and Golder, M.. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses.” Political Analysis, 14 (1): 63–82.Google Scholar
Carroll, S. and Fox, R., eds. 2009. Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolan, K. 2013. “Gender Stereotypes, Candidate Evaluations, and Voting for Women Candidates: What Really Matters?.” Political Research Quarterly, 67 (1): 96–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolan, K. and Sanbonmatsu, K.. 2011. “Candidate Gender and Experimental Political Science.” In Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science, eds. Druckman, J., Green, D. P. and Kuklinski, J. H.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 289–97.Google Scholar
Druckman, J. N., Fein, J., and Leeper, T. J.. 2012. “A Source of Bias in Public Opinion Stability.” American Political Science Review, 106 (2): 430–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hechter, M. 1988. Principles of Group Solidarity. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hood, M. V. and Mckee, S. C.. 2015. “True Colors White Conservative Support for Minority Republican Candidates.” Public Opinion Quarterly, 79 (1): 28–52.Google Scholar
Huddy, L. and Cassese, E.. 2013. “On the Complex and Varied Political Effects of Gender.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media, eds. Shapiro, R. Y. and Jacobs, L. R.. New York: Oxford University Press, 471–87.Google Scholar
Huddy, L. and Terkildsen, N.. 1993. “Gender Stereotypes and the Perception of Male and Female Candidates.” American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1): 119–47.Google Scholar
Iyengar, S. and Barisione, M.. 2015. “Non-verbal Cues as a Test of Gender and Race Bias in Politics: The Italian Case.” Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 45 (2): 131–57.Google Scholar
ITANES, ed. 2008. Il Ritorno di Berlusconi. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., and Sulloway, F. J.. 2003. “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.” Psychological Bulletin, 129 (3): 339–75.Google Scholar
Koch, J. W. 2000. “Do Citizens Apply Gender Stereotypes to Infer Candidates’ Ideological Orientations?” The Journal of Politics, 62 (2): 414–29.Google Scholar
Lodge, M. and Taber, C.. 2000. “Three Steps Toward a Theory of Motivated Political Reasoning.” In Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality, eds. Lupia, A., McCubbins, M. D. and Popkin, S. L.. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. 183–213.Google Scholar
Matsubayashi, T. and Ueda, M.. 2011. “Political Knowledge and the Use of Candidate Race as a Voting Cue.” American Politics Research, 39 (2): 380–413.Google Scholar
McDermott, M. L. 1997. “Voting Cues in Low-Information Elections: Candidate Gender as a Social Information Variable in Contemporary United States Elections.” American Journal of Political Science, 41 (1): 270–83.Google Scholar
McDermott, M. L. 1998. “Race and Gender Cues in Low-Information Elections.” Political Research Quarterly, 51 (4): 895–918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philpot, T. S. and Walton, H.. 2007. “One of Our Own: Black Female Candidates and the Voters who Support Them.” American Journal of Political Science, 51 (1): 49–62.Google Scholar
Piston, S. 2010. “How Explicit Racial Prejudice Hurt Obama in the 2008 Election.” Political Behavior, 32 (4): 431–51.Google Scholar
Prior, M. 2013. “Media and Political Polarization.” Annual Review of Political Science, 16: 101–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roets, A. and Van Hiel, A.. 2011. “Item Selection and Validation of a Brief, 15-item Version of the Need for Closure Scale.” Personality and Individual Differences, 50 (1): 90–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanbonmatsu, K. 2002. “Gender Stereotypes and Vote Choice.” American Journal of Political Science, 46 (1): 20–34.Google Scholar
Schaffner, B. F. 2011. “Racial Salience and the Obama Vote.” Political Psychology, 32 (6): 963–88.Google Scholar
Schneider, M. and Bos, A.. 2013. “Measuring Stereotypes of Female Politicians.” Political Psychology, 35 (2): 245–66.Google Scholar
Sherif, M. and Hovland, C. I.. 1961. Social Judgment: Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Communication and Attitude Change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sidanius, J. and Pratto, F.. 2001. Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sigelman, C. K., Sigelman, L., Walkosz, B. J., and Nitz, M.. 1995. “Black Candidates, White Voters: Understanding Racial Bias in Political Perceptions.” American Journal of Political Science, 39 (1): 243–65.Google Scholar
Skvoretz, J. 2013. “Diversity, Integration, and Social Ties: Attraction versus Repulsion as Drivers of Intra-and Intergroup Relations.” American Journal of Sociology, 119 (2): 486–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, D. 1992. “Valence Politics.” In Electoral Politics, ed. Kavanagh, D.. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 80–100.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C.. 2004. “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior.” In Political Psychology: Key Readings. Key Readings in Social Psychology, eds. Jost, John T. and Sidanius, Jim. New York, NY, US: Psychology Press. 276–93.Google Scholar
Terkildsen, N. 1993. “When white voters evaluate black candidates: The processing implications of candidate skin color, prejudice, and self-monitoring.” American Journal of Political Science, 4: 1032–1053.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vezzoni, C. 2014. “Italian National Election Survey 2013: A further Step in a Consolidating Tradition.” Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 1: 81–108.Google Scholar
Weaver, V. M. 2012. “The Electoral Consequences of Skin Color: The ‘Hidden’ Side of Race in Politics.” Political Behavior, 34 (1): 159–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, D. M. and Kruglanski, A. W.. 1994. “Individual Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 (6): 1049–62.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Barisione and Iyengar supplementary material

Appendix

Download Barisione and Iyengar supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 614 KB