Dataset Information

Candidate preferences and expectations of election outcomes.

ABSTRACT: Analysis of data from the American Life Panel shows that in the presidential election of 2008 and in multiple statewide elections in 2010, citizens exhibited large differences in their expectations of election outcomes. Expectations were strongly positively associated with candidate preferences, persons tending to believe that their preferred candidate is more likely to win the election. Committed supporters of opposing candidates regularly differed by 20-30% in their assessments of the likelihood that each candidate would win. These findings contribute evidence on the false consensus effect, the empirical regularity that own preferences tend to be positively associated with perceptions of social preferences. We used unique measures of preferences and perceptions that enabled respondents to express uncertainty flexibly. We studied a setting that would a priori seem inhospitable to false consensus--one where persons have little private information on social preferences but substantial common knowledge provided by media reports of election polls.

SUBMITTER: Delavande A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3309779 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Candidate preferences and expectations of election outcomes.

Delavande Adeline A Manski Charles F CF

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20120221 10

Analysis of data from the American Life Panel shows that in the presidential election of 2008 and in multiple statewide elections in 2010, citizens exhibited large differences in their expectations of election outcomes. Expectations were strongly positively associated with candidate preferences, persons tending to believe that their preferred candidate is more likely to win the election. Committed supporters of opposing candidates regularly differed by 20-30% in their assessments of the likeliho ...[more]

PMID: 22355121

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Project description:How competent a politician looks, as assessed in the laboratory, is correlated with whether the politician wins in real elections. This finding has led many to investigate whether the association between candidate appearances and election outcomes transcends cultures. However, these studies have largely focused on European countries and Caucasian candidates. To the best of our knowledge, there are only four cross-cultural studies that have directly investigated how face-based trait inferences correlate with election outcomes across Caucasian and Asian cultures. These prior studies have provided some initial evidence regarding cultural differences, but methodological problems and inconsistent findings have complicated our understanding of how culture mediates the effects of candidate appearances on election outcomes. Additionally, these four past studies have focused on positive traits, with a relative neglect of negative traits, resulting in an incomplete picture of how culture may impact a broader range of trait inferences. To study Caucasian-Asian cultural effects with a more balanced experimental design, and to explore a more complete profile of traits, here we compared how Caucasian and Korean participants' inferences of positive and negative traits correlated with U.S. and Korean election outcomes. Contrary to previous reports, we found that inferences of competence (made by participants from both cultures) correlated with both U.S. and Korean election outcomes. Inferences of open-mindedness and threat, two traits neglected in previous cross-cultural studies, were correlated with Korean but not U.S. election outcomes. This differential effect was found in trait judgments made by both Caucasian and Korean participants. Interestingly, the faster the participants made face-based trait inferences, the more strongly those inferences were correlated with real election outcomes. These findings provide new insights into cultural effects and the difficult question of causality underlying the association between facial inferences and election outcomes. We also discuss the implications for political science and cognitive psychology.

Dataset Information

Candidate preferences and expectations of election outcomes.

Publications

Candidate preferences and expectations of election outcomes.

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