https://www.benjaminlauderdale.net/categories/candidate-choice/ Recent content in Candidate Choice on Benjamin Lauderdale Hugo en-GB Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.benjaminlauderdale.net/publications/populist-arguments/ Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.benjaminlauderdale.net/publications/populist-arguments/ <p>Populist rhetoric – presenting arguments in people-centric, anti-elite and ‘good v. evil’ frames – is said to provide populist parties and candidates with an advantage in electoral competition. Yet, identifying the causal effect of populist rhetoric is complicated by its enmeshment with certain positions and issues. We implement a survey experiment in the UK (n≈9,000), in which hypothetical candidates with unknown policy positions randomly make (non-)populist arguments, taking different positions on various issues. Our findings show that, on average, populist arguments have a negative effect on voters’ evaluations of the candidate profiles and no effect on voters’ issue preferences. However, populist arguments sway voters’ issue preferences when made by a candidate profile that voters are inclined to support. Among voters with strong populist attitudes, populist arguments also do not dampen candidates’ electoral viability. These findings suggest that populist rhetoric is useful in convincing and mobilizing supporters but detrimental in expanding electoral support.</p> https://www.benjaminlauderdale.net/publications/matching-social-psych-attitudes/ Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.benjaminlauderdale.net/publications/matching-social-psych-attitudes/ <p>Politicians are increasingly able to communicate their values, attitudes, and concerns directly to voters. Yet little is known about which of these signals resonate with voters and why. We employ a discrete choice experiment to investigate whether and which social-psychological attitudes predict how adult British voters respond to corresponding attitudinal signals communicated by candidates in hypothetical social media posts. For all attitudes studied, covering social feelings (trust, collective nostalgia), social perceptions (nationalism, populist sentiment), and social commitments (national identification, authoritarianism, egalitarianism), we find that participants are much more likely to vote for candidates who signal proximity to their own attitudinal position and less likely for candidates who signal opposing views. The strongest effects were observed for national identification, authoritarianism, and egalitarianism, indicating the importance of commitment to a shared group and to particular principles for distributing power and resources within and between groups. We further demonstrate that social-psychological attitudes are not acting as mere proxies for participants&rsquo; past votes or left–right ideology. Our results extend adaptive followership theory to incorporate preferences concerning intragroup coordination and intergroup hierarchy, while highlighting the social-psychological dynamics of political communication that may transcend the concerns of particular election cycles.</p>