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Emotion and campaign advertising: causes of political anxiety and its effects on candidate evaluation

Holbrook, Ronald Andrew

Abstract Details

2005, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.
Recent advances in political science have highlighted the importance of anxiety in helping voters deal with the incredible amount of information they are presented with during elections. While this emerging literature has done much to dispel of notions of emotions as being purely detrimental to politics, a number of questions remain unaddressed. First, what characteristics of political candidates make voters anxious? Second, do different causes of anxiety have different effects on the public? And third, how does anxiety influence the psychological processes of candidate evaluation? To answer these questions, a pre-test survey was used to identify what policy stances and candidate characteristics tend to cause anxiety in the electorate. Based on these data, campaign materials (i.e. television commercials and campaign brochures) were created in which the amount of anxiety-inducing information about a candidate for the United States Congress was manipulated. These materials were then employed in a controlled laboratory experiment in which psychophysiological (skin conductance response) and self-response indicators of anxiety, as well as indicators of processes of candidate evaluation, were used. The findings of this project suggest that many assumptions about the causes and the effects of political anxiety are wrong. Most importantly, this project highlights the distinction between threat-based and novelty-based anxiety. Whereas novelty-based anxiety aids information retention and the evaluation of candidates as information is encountered, threat-based anxiety is shown to impede these processes. This dissertation ends with a discussion of the implications of this evidence for campaign advertising and the psychology of candidate evaluation.
Kathleen McGraw (Advisor)
302 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Holbrook, R. A. (2005). Emotion and campaign advertising: causes of political anxiety and its effects on candidate evaluation [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1123758754

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Holbrook, Ronald. Emotion and campaign advertising: causes of political anxiety and its effects on candidate evaluation. 2005. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1123758754.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Holbrook, Ronald. "Emotion and campaign advertising: causes of political anxiety and its effects on candidate evaluation." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1123758754

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)