The accountability effect of endorsements: A survey experiment

Ferrari, Ignazio De

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2016.10.002

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…In most cases, this process produces reasonable voting choices, even if the voter is not fully informed on all the relevant issues." De Ferrari (2017) "In judging either policies or candidates, citizens can use the statements of politicians that they trust as cues (Mondak, 1993a). Alternatively, "they can consider the positions of interest groups whose policy preferences they are generally inclined to support or oppose" (Kuklinski and Quirk, 2000, p. 155).…”

Section: B2 Conventional Wisdom From the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Heuristic Projection: How Interest Group Cues Can Undermine Democratic Accountability

Broockman¹,

Lenz²,

Kaufman³

2020

Preprint

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How can voters who know little about their representatives’ actions hold them accountable? An influential perspective contends that voters rely on cues from interest groups to act as if they were informed. We argue that interest group cues can also have pathological effects on voters’ judgments. When voters know little about interest group reputations, we argue, then voters may naively assume interest groups share their policy views. Interest groups may foster such misperceptions by adopting ambiguously positive names, such as FreedomWorks. When groups positively rate voters’ representatives, voters may therefore infer they agree with their representatives’ policy decisions and approve of their representatives more, even when their representatives earned these favorable ratings by casting votes these voters disagree with, and from groups misaligned with voters’ views. We call this tendency heuristic projection. Across four studies, we find considerable support for this pathology and only occasional support for the traditional view.

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Section: B2 Conventional Wisdom From the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Heuristic Projection: How Interest Group Cues Can Undermine Democratic Accountability

Broockman¹,

Lenz²,

Kaufman³

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In most cases, this process produces reasonable voting choices, even if the voter is not fully informed on all the relevant issues." Ferrari (2017) "In judging either policies or candidates, citizens can use the statements of politicians that they trust as cues (Mondak, 1993a). Alternatively, "they can consider the positions of interest groups whose policy preferences they are generally inclined to support or oppose" (Kuklinski and Quirk, 2000, p. 155).…”

Section: Continued On Next Pagementioning

confidence: 99%

Heuristic Projection

Broockman¹,

Kaufman²,

Lenz³

2020

Preprint

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Can voters who know little about their representatives’ actions effectively hold them accountable? An influential perspective argues that voters can infer their representatives’ actions by using interest group ratings as heuristics. Across nine studies in four original samples, we show that information about interest group ratings can have surprisingly pathological effects on voters’ judgments about their representatives. In our studies, voters shown interest group ratings are typically no more accurate at inferring their Member of Congress’ votes, nor do they usually adjust their views of their representatives appropriately. But voters do often engage in heuristic projection: voters act as if interest groups share their own views, approving of their representatives more and perceiving their representatives as agreeing with them on more issues when they learn their representatives received favorable interest group ratings— regardless of whether their representatives earned favorable ratings by casting votes those same voters disagree with.

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“…The latter result is straightforward: the ability to advertise desirable candidate characteristics without the donor's ideological baggage tainting the message can be useful for persuading voters. The former result follows from a unique theoretical mechanism: the presence 5 For example, previous research has shown that candidate endorsements by special interest groups serve as heuristics for voters (Arceneaux and Kolodny 2009;De Ferrari 2017;McDermott 2006;Neddenriep and Nownes 2014). Though recent research has also suggested that voters may find it difficult to accurately identify interest group positions and instead project their own views on groups (Broockman, Lenz and Kaufman 2020).…”

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confidence: 99%

Dark Money and Voter Learning

Schnakenberg¹,

Schumock²,

Turner³

2023

Preprint

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We provide a model of dark money in elections. An ideologically extreme donor with private information about candidate ideology and quality can advertise on behalf of a candidate. Advertising reveals information about candidate quality to voters, who can learn from either donor-funded or neutral advertising. Voters update negatively about candidate ideology when ads are known to be donor-funded. Dark money suppresses source information and allows donors to advertise candidate quality while simultaneously concealing the ideological motivations behind ad funding. However, dark money leads voters to become skeptical of all advertising, which can disadvantage donors.

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The accountability effect of endorsements: A survey experiment

Cited by 4 publications

References 64 publications

Heuristic Projection: How Interest Group Cues Can Undermine Democratic Accountability

Heuristic Projection: How Interest Group Cues Can Undermine Democratic Accountability

Heuristic Projection

Dark Money and Voter Learning

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