NEGATIVITY IN POLITICAL PERCEPTION

Richard R. Lau

The tendency for negative information to have more weight than equally extreme or
equally likely positive information appears in a variety of cognitive processingtasks, but
has rarely been documented empirically in politics. This paper provides evidence for two
types of negativity effects in electoral behavior: negativity in the formation of impressions
(of Humphrey and Nixon in 1968, of MeGovern and Nixon in 1972, and of Carter and
Reagan in 1980), and negativity as a consequence of impressions (in the 1974 and 1978
congressionalelections). Both post hoc rationalization and the nonequivalenceof the positive and negative information were examined and ruled out as artifactual explanationsfor
these results. Discussion centered around two possible explanations for negativit, a costorientation hypothesis(which holds that people are more strongly motivated to avoid costs
than to approach gains) and a figure-ground hypothesis(which holds that negative information stands out against a general positive background).

Although the public's perception of political leaders is one of the most

important aspects of political behavior, this area has drawn surprisingly
little systematic research. Until recently we knew little about the dynamics
of political person perception, other than that those perceptions were
strongly shaped by longstanding party identification (Sears, 1969) and perhaps ideological stands (Weisberg and Rusk, 1970). W h a t images people
did have of candidates seemed to consist mainly of impressions of their
personal qualities (Carter's morality, Ford's clumsiness) or associations
with simple valence issues (Reagan is for a strong defense). Although this
picture has not changed much, more recent work seems to emphasize the
dimensions of integrity and competency in candidate evaluations (see
Miller, Wattenberg, and Malanchuk, 1982; Kinder, Fiske, and Wagner,
1980, for an excellent review).
W i t h so little known about the dynamics of political perception, it
Richard R. Lau, Department of Social Sciences, Carnegie-MellonUniversit~
Political Behavior

Agathon Press, Inc.

Vol. 4, No. 4, 1982

353

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comes as no surprise that even less is known about biases in perceptions of

political leaders. Only two such biases come to mind. First, the tendency
for evaluations of candidates, party identification, and issue positions to
fall in line has been explained in terms of cognitive consistency forces
(Kinder, 1978; Raven and Gallo, 1965). Second, Sears has noted a strong
propensity for political leaders (and other people) to be evaluated positively (Sears, 1982; Sears and Whitney, 1974). Besides these two brief forays, however, the field of biases in political perception remains, for the
most part, unexplored.
Political lore suggests at least one other bias that could be important in
political perception. It is frequently suggested that people vote against one
candidate rather than for his or her opponent. For instance the authors of
The American Voter suggest that variations in electoral outcomes from
year to year can best be explained by a "negative public reaction to the
record of the party in power" (Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes,
1960, p.554), which is not offset by a concomitant favorable public reaction when the party (or president) in power does well. We hear more about
"throwing the rascals out" than "keeping the statesmen in." Voters seem
more willing to give symbolic kicks in the pants than pats on the back. And
while comments about the inordinate strength of negative information
abound in political discussions, there is very little empirical evidence supporting them.
There are only three studies that in any way have found negativity in
politics. Mueller (1973) looked at correlations of presidential popularity
with the unemployment rate as a general indicator of economic wellbeing. He theorized that increases in unemployment should lead to decreases in popularity. A variety of different attempts to represent this theory all proved unsuccessful, however. The only reasonable model Mueller
could fit to the data explicitly posits a type of negativity effect: increases in
unemployment lead to decreases in presidential popularity, but decreases
in unemployment have no concomitant positive effect on popularity. Likewise Bloom and Price (1975) found that incumbents are punished for worsening economic conditions but not similarly rewarded for improving conditions.
Kernell's (1977) alternative to the "surge and decline" model of off-year
congressional voting is the most elaborate study of negativity in political
behavior to date. "Surge and decline" refers to the tendency for the president's party to gain seats in Congress when the president is elected and to
lose seats in the off-year election two years later. Kernell argues in essence
that the president's party will be hurt more by its supporters who disapprove of the job the president is doing than it will be helped by partisans of
the other party who approve of the president's job performance. He de-

NEGATIVITY IN POUTICS

355

rives and tests four hypotheses from his negative voting model. First, turnout: those who disapprove of the president (regardless of party) will vote in
higher proportions than will those who approve of his job performance.
Second, defection of partisans: members of the president's party who disapprove of his performance will defect away from his party in their congressional vote at higher rates than will members of the opposite party who
approve of the president's job performance defect to his party. Third, reinforcement of partisans: members of the president's party who approve of
him will vote for their party's congressional candidate less frequently than
will members of the opposite party who disapprove of the president's performance vote consistent with their party identification. Fourth, candidate choice among independents: disapproval will cost the president's
party more votes from independents than approval will earn it. Kernell
tests his hypotheses using Gallup poll data from the off-year congressional
elections between 1946 and 1966, To summarize the results briefly, the
three hypotheses involving candidate choice are supported in every election he examined. The turnout hypothesis is supported for independents
and for people who identify with the opposite party from the president,
and not for identifiers with the president's party. Thus on three (and possibly four) counts, negativity carries more impact than positivity. More generally, Kernell's (1977) article provides the most systematic support for a
negativity effect in political behavior to date.
In more formal terms, negativity refers to the tendency for negative
information to have more weight than equally extreme or equally likely
positive information in various impression-formation or cognitive processing tasks. This tendency is welt documented in social psychological research. For example, person perception research has consistently found
that negative trait-descriptions are more influential than comparable positive trait-descriptions in various impression formation tasks (e.g., Anderson, 1965; Hamilton and Zanna, 1972; Koenigs, 1974), and further that
negative first impressions are more resistant to change than positive first
impressions (e.g., Beigel, 1973; Richey, McClelland, and Shimkunis,
1967), Similarly, the risk-taking literature has consistently found that potential costs more often govern decisions than do potential gains in simpte
bets (Myers, Reilly, and Taub, 1961), ethical risk taking (Rettig and Pasamanick, 1964), "life dilemma" situations (Kogan and Wallach, 1967), or
decision making more generally (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; see Kanouse and Hanson, 1972, for a review of negativity).
This literature suggests that there are in fact two different types of negativity effects. First, negative information is more important than comparable positive information in the formation of impressions of others (or in the
making of decisions). And second, the consequences of negative evaluations

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(however reached) are greater than the consequences of positive evaluations. Both Bloom and Price (1975) and Kernell (1977) examined the relative consequences of positive or negative evaluations and events. Neither
study examined negativity in the formation of political evaluations. Mueller (1973) did, but he used aggregate data, and a theory about individual
behavior cannot be adequately tested with aggregate data. No one, then,
has documented negativity effects in the formation of impressions of political leaders at the individual level.
This paper provides evidence for both forms of negativity in political
perception. Study i illustrates negativity as a consequence of evaluation by
extending Kernell's analyses to the 1974 and 1978 congressional elections.
Studies 2 and 3 then turn to the more formidable task of documenting
negativity in the formation of political evaluations. The NES/CPS American National Election Studies are used as data bases throughout.
Because the data are correlational and come from surveys in which precise measurement is not always feasible, two problems will persist in all
the analyses to follow. The first is the problem of the extremity of the
positive and negative effects involved. The theory predicts that equally
extreme positive and negative judgments or stimuli will have differentially
strong effects; but any theory would predict that a very strong negative
stimuli would have greater effects than a much weaker positive stimuli.
The problem is in equating the positive and negative stimuli employed.
This will be accomplished in Studies 1 and 3 by utilizing an extraneous
evaluative measure as a criterion of extremity. The complexity of the construction of the crucial variables in Study 2 will not allow such a procedure
to be performed there, and the equivalence of the extremity of the positive
and negative stimuli will have to be taken somewhat on faith in that study.
The second problem deals with the direction of causality. In Studies 2
and 3, I will be assuming that the positive and negative stimuli caused the
evaluations of the political figures. Since real people are used as stimulus
persons, however, the possibility exists that the variables used to predict
evaluations of the stimulus persons are in fact rationalizations of those
evaluations. In the main analyses, the rationalization problem will be handled by (a) insuring that the independent variables are collected several
months before the evaluative dependent variables, and (b) selecting
respondents from whom rationalization is much less likely to be occurring. Rationalization will be explicitly examined in a separate section of
Study 2.
STUDY I: NEGATIVITY IN THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVALUATIONS

Evidence that the consequences of negative evaluations are greater than

NEGATIVITY IN POLITICS

357

the consequences of equally extreme positive evaluations already exists in

Kernell's (1977) research. His negative voting model predicts that turnout,
defection, reinforcement, and candidate choice among independents
should all be stronger among those who disapprove of the president's job
performance than among those who approve of his performance. Kernell's
analyses were repeated here, using the 1974 and 1978 Michigan election
studies. Kernell did not provide necessary controls on the different propensities of Republicans and Democrats to defect from their party; however, so
these controls are provided in the analyses below.
This necessary control is simply party identification. Overall, Democrats have a greater tendency to defect from their party than do Republicans (Converse, 1966). Given this fact, it would be an error to simply
present the raw data, for negativity would look much greater with a Democratic president (and Democratic defectors) than with a Republican president. Indeed Kernell's (1977) data, which do not control for this differenee, are exactly consistent with these expectations: the negativity effect
looks much stronger in the four elections he studied with a Democratic
president than in the two elections with a Republican president. Therefore, the data presented below control on the overall tendency for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to vote for candidates of the two parties.
The key independent variable is a simple question asking respondents if
they approve or disapprove of the job the president is doing. This is the
same question Gallup has been using for years to measure public support
for the president. Respondents were also asked a series of questions to determine their party identification, which here was defined simply as Democrat, Republican, or Independent. The dependent variables were
whether they had, first, voted for any congressional candidate and, second, voted for a congressional candidate of the president's party (Republican in 1974, Democratic in 1978) or some other candidate.
The results are presented in Table 1. The turnout hypothesis argues that
respondents who disapprove of the president's job performance will vote
(to protest the president's activities) in larger numbers than will respondents who approve of the president's performance. In both years the negativity hypothesis is supported among 2 of the 3 partisan groups.
The vote preference data are slightly more complicated because of the
necessary controls. Taking the defection hypothesis in 1974 as an example,
19.0% of the Democrats who approved of Ford's job performance voted
for a Republican congressional candidate. When this is compared to the
overall tendency of Democrats to vote Republican in 1974--13.5 %--this
yields an "approval effect" of 5.5 %. Similarly 37.1% of the Republicans
who disapproved of Ford's performance voted for a Democratic candi-

tall

358

TABLE 1. Negativity as a Consequence of Evaluations in Congressional Voting

Hypothesis
1974: Turnout
Republicans
Democrats
Independents

Presidential Popularity___. . . . .
Disapprove
Approve
Difference
62.9% ( 1 0 5 ) a 61.1% (350)
55.6% (423) 48.2% (353)
44.5% (192) 45.9% (434)

1.8%
7.4%
-1.4%

Vote preference

Defection of partisans
Reinforcement of partisans
Candidate choice among
Independents
1978: Turnout
Republicans
Democrats
Independents

13.4% (62)
4.2% (235)

5.5% (163)
3.9% (212)

7.9%
.3%

9.8% (119)

6.7% (175)

3.1%

73.2% (198) 59.4% (128)

55.9% (143) 60.8% (479)
56.3% (199) 48.2% (384)

13.8%
-4.9%
.1%

Vote preJerence

Defection
4.0% (73)
6.7% (67)
-2.7%
Reinforcement
3.5% (263) 1.2% (136)
2.3%
Candidate choice
3.9% (136) 2.3% (67)
1.6%
Note: Entries for the three vote preference hypothesesare the "controlled" effects(seetext).
ONsare in parentheses.
date, and compared to an overall defection propensity of 23.7%, this
yields a "disapproval effect" of 13.4 %. Negativity predicts that the disapproval effect will be larger than the approval effect, and in five of the six
cases it is, although the magnitude of the differences is reduced because of
the controls.
Hence this analysis found support for negativity as a consequence of
evaluations in nine of twelve possible tests. Given the crudeness of the
measure of evaluation used here, this is fairly impressive support. If we
assume that the approval effect is as likely to be larger than the disapproval effect or vice versa, the pattern of results observed in Table i would
occur by chance less than 6 times in 100.
As mentioned above, the analyses assumed that "approval" and "disapproval," because they are antonyms, are equally discrepant. A similar assumption is made in several psychological studies in the literature supporting negativity. However, if disapproval is a more extreme affect than
approval, we have an interesting political effect but psychometrically
weak evidence for negativity itself. Any theory would predict that an extreme affect will have greater consequences than a more moderate one.
To try to determine the extremity of approval and disapproval, a second
evaluative measure, a "feeling thermometer," was employed. A feeling
thermometer is a 100-point rating scale widely used by the NES/CPS sur-

NEGATIVITYIN POLITICS

359

veys, with ratings above 50 meaning positive or warm and ratings below
50 meaning negative or cold. The midpoint 50 is explicitly labeled "neutral, neither warm nor cold." Using the feeling thermometer ratings of the
incumbent president as criteria, there is little evidence that either approval
or disapproval is much more extreme than the other. To take 1974 as an
example, the average rating of Ford by those who approved of his job
performance was 73.6, compared to 45.8 by the disapprovers, The approvers are considerably farther above the objective midpoint of 50 than
are disapprovers below it, but the disapprovers are somewhat farther below the empirical mean (61.9) than the approvers are above it. In neither
ease is there much evidence that "disapproval" is a much more extreme
affect than is "approval," thereby artifactually "building in" the results.
We can now turn to the second type of negativity effect.
STUDY 2: NEGATIVITY IN THE FORMATION OF EVALUATIONS

The data employed in Study 2 come from the 1968, 1972, and 1980
NES/CPS American National Election Studies. These nationally representative surveys interviewed respondents twice, once before the election and
once after it. Open-ended questions about reasons for voting for and
against each major candidate provide relatively accurate and distinct measures of positive and negative information about them. In 1980, for instance, this question was worded:
Now I'd like to ask you about the good and bad points of the two major candidates for president. Is there anything in particular about Mr. Carter that might
make you want to vote for him? (What is that? ... Anything else?) ... Is there
anything in particular about Mr. Carter that might make you want to vote
against him? (What is it? ... Anything else?).
Usually up to five positive responses are coded, and then up to five negative responses about the same candidate are recorded. The actual reasons
given are much too diverse for analysis here. But the number of positive
and the number of negative reasons given for voting for and against a
candidate, respectively, can be taken as an indication of the relative
amount of positive and negative information each respondent had about
each candidate. Distinct measures of positive and negative affect are
needed to contrast the influence of each and thereby test negativity.
Simple counts of positive and negative information could not be used as
they were, however, for what is really of interest is the amount of positive
relative to negative information. 1Hence two new variables were created to
represent an excess of positive over negative (or negative over positive)
information. The positive information variable was created by subtracting

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the number of negative reasons from the number of positive reasons and
collapsing all negative values of this difference into 0. This new variable
ran from 5 (five reasons offered for voting for a candidate, and none for
voting against him) to 0 (an equal number of positive and negative reasons
given, or more negative reasons given). The negative information variable
was created by subtracting the number of positive from the number of
negative reasons, and ran from 5 (5 reasons offered for voting against a
candidate and none to voting for him) to 0. The dependent variables were
"feeling thermometers" that had been gathered about the major presidential candidates and a variety of other political figures since the 1968 study. ~
Before presenting the results, one complexity should be mentioned
again. Even if positive and/or negative information correlates with the
vote choice, one could argue that these reasons given for the vote were not
the actual determinants of evaluations, but rather were simple rationalizat/ons of the vote decision. Even though the open-ended responses were
always collected at the very beginning of the pre-eleetion interview, most
respondents had made up their minds about the candidates before this
time. Hence it cannot be determined for certain whether the reasons respondents gave for the vote were the determinants of those decisions or
rationalizations generated after the fact. Indeed, either interpretation
seems plausible.
Consequently the analysis was conducted in ways that minimize the
rationalization possiblity. First, it deals chiefly with respondents for whom
these reasons were probably not rationalizations of the vote decision, by
selecting those who, at the time of their pre-election interview, were undecided about their vote choice. The reasons given for voting for or against a
candidate were less likely to be rationalizations of a vote decision for this
"predeeisional" sample, since that decision had not yet been reached.
Hence results from both a predecisional and, for purposes of comparison, a
postdecisional sample (those who had already decided for whom to vote at
the time of the pre-election interview) are presented below.
An additional safeguard against the rationalization possibility is to measure the hypothesized "cause" and "effect" in two different interviews. In
all of the Michigan election surveys, the reasons to vote for and against the
various candidates were asked at the very beginning of the pre-election
interview. The candidate feeling thermometers were obtained in the postelection interview in 1968, 1972, and 1980. 3 The problem of rationalization will be considered further after the basic results are presented.
The feeling thermometers for the six candidates with appropriate data
were regressed on the measures of positive and negative information about
the candidates and a dummy variable representing party identification. 4
These results are shown in Table 2, for both the predeeisional and the

.16

.12

.12

.11

.09

.10 b

-8.67
(1.90)
-4.67
(1.45)
-9.48
(4.56)
-13.17
(4.57)
-6.47
(.93)
-6.67
(1.33)
-.32

-.42

-.22

-.20

-.25

-.33

6.57
(.55)
5.34
(.68)
15.50
(2.39)
15.50
(1.85)
5.01
(.79)
4.68
(.72)
.21

.21

.27

.27

.26

.34

-6.92
(.78)
-5.63
(.75)
-19.77
(2.12)
-20.66
(2.04)
-8.94
(.64)
-9.99
(.87)
-. 38

-.46

-.34

-.32

-.23

-.25

Postdecisional Sample
Positive
Negative

2.64
(1.79) a
2.13
(1.71)
5.70
(5.52)
3.38
(4.44)
2.68
(1.34)
3.77
(1.51)

"Standard errors are shown in parentheses.

bStandardized beta weights are in italics.

Note: Each row of Table 2 is a separate regression. Table entries are unstandardized b weights.

Reagan

1980: Carter

Nixon

1972: McGovern

Nixon

1968: Humphrey

Presidential Candidates

Reagan

1980: Carter

Nixon

1972: McGovern

Nixon

1968: Humphrey

Presidential Candidates

Predecisional Sample
Positive
Negative
Information
Information

TABLE 2. Negativity in the Perception of Presidential Candidates

11.13
(1.40)
10.23
(1.46)
9.70
(1.71)
9.97
(1.46)
11.44
(1.79)
14.94
(1.61)

Party

10.71
(3.37)
5.31
(2.94)
2.94
(4.48)
7.05
(4.58)
3.64
(2.18)
5.19
(2.66)

Party

.53
.49

.29

680

685

904

900

.36
.47

1092

1097

254

253

.33

.41

R2

.20

.26

132

130

.07
.14

194

193

.11

.21

.20

.19

.17

.21

.21

.11

.09

.07

.05

.13

.21

R2

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postdecisional samples. Since the metrics for the positive and negative information variables are almost identical across all regressions, the unstandardized b weights will be our focus of attention, although for completeness the standardized beta weights are also shown. Negativity predicts that
this b weight or slope should be steeper (farther from 0) for negative information than for positive. Consider the regression predicting evaluations of
Hubert Humphrey in 1968 within the predecisional sample (first row of
Table 2). The slope of the positive information variable is 2.64; the comparable slope for negative information is -8.67, more than three times as
great. In this case, a negativity hypothesis is strongly supported. And in all
six regressions in the predecisional sample (where the rationalization argument seems most implausible), the negative information slope is almost
twice as large or larger than the comparable positive information slope.
The picture is somewhat different when the postdecisional sample is
considered (lower part of Table 2). Recall that this group arguably indudes rationalizations among its "reasons." Again in all six cases the negative information slope is larger than the positive information slope, but the
differences are not as large as in the predecisional sample. Although the
results from the postdecisional sample produce weaker support for negativity, they are consistent with those from the predecisional sample.
The RationalizationArgument

These analyses provide strong evidence for a negativity effect in the formation of evaluations of presidential candidates. In all 12 regressions, and
particularly in the 6 most appropriate analyses (the predecisional sampies), the negative information slope is steeper than the positive information slope. Why the effect was much weaker in the postdecisional sample is
difficult to say. Given the previously discussed reservations about post hoc
rationalization within this group, these data may simply be inappropriate.
The true negativity effect may actually by blurred in the postdeeisional
sample if people are reluctant to admit to negative influences when justifying previous decisions (see, for example, Folkes and Sears, 1977, or Tesser
and Rosen, 1975). Negativity is after all postulated to affect the formation
of impressions, not their rationalization.
An alternate possibility is that other differences between the pre- and
postdecisional groups led to the differences in the results. The laterdeciding group (the predecisional sample) was no less educated or less interested in politics. They were somewhat less partisan, but controlling on
party identification did not substantially change the results. ~The postdecisional group always had more positive and/or negative things to say about
the candidates, but examination of the standardized regression weights

NEGATIVITYIN POLITICS

363

should control on any mean differences in the predictors, and they do not
substantially alter the picture presented by Table 2.
Another strategy is to search actively for rationalization in both postand predecisional samples. The psychological theory that most directly
addresses postdecisional rationalization is Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory. According to Festinger, once a decision has been reached,
the decision maker will experience dissonance if he or she holds cognitions
that are inconsistent with that decision. So if voters decide they like and
will vote for a particular candidate, any negative information they have
about the candidate will be dissonance arousing. Similarly if voters decide
they dislike and will vote against a candidate, any positive information
about that candidate will be dissonance arousing. Since dissonance is assumed to be an aversive state, individuals are motivated to reduce the
dissonance.
Dissonance can be reduced, according to Festinger, in three different
ways: (1) One can add consonant elements and subtract dissonant elements. That is, one can seek out, remember, or invent reasons consonant
with one's decision, and avoid, repress, or deny reasons dissonant with
ones decision; (2) one can reduce the importance of dissonant cognitions;
(3) one can change the valence of dissonant elements, either by changing
one's own values and preferences or by changing one's perception of the
dissonant element so that it appears to be consonant. The theory does not
predict which of these will operate under particular circumstances, so possibly all three mechanisms are at work here. If the first dissonancereducing mechanism is occurring, we would expect survey respondents to
give many reasons to vote for a chosen candidate and few reasons to vote
against him, while they should give many reasons to vote against a rejected
candidate and few reasons to vote for him. If rationalization is not occurring, the difference should not be so prominent.
The second dissonance-reducing mechanism would suggest that not only
would there be mean differences in the number of reasons reported to vote
for and against chosen and rejected candidates, but that those reasons
would also differ in importance. That is, a reason offered to vote for a
chosen candidate should have more weight in predicting evaluations of
him then would a reason given to vote for a rejected candidate. The opposite should be true for reasons offered to vote against the two candidates.
The third dissonance-reducing mechanism, changing the valence of dissonant cognitions, is best considered in the context of issue proximities.
Agreeing with a rejected candidate on the issues or disagreeing with a
chosen candidate should again be dissonance arousing. Voters can reduce
this dissonance by assimulating the positions of chosen candidates to their
own positions and by contrasting the positions of rejected candidates from

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I.AtJ

their own. So issue distances should be smaller to chosen candidates when

dissonance-reducing rationalization is occurring than when it is not, and
similarly greater to rejected candidates if dissonance-reducing rationalization is occurring than if it is not. 6
All three of the dissonance-reducing rationalizations could be examined
in the 1972 data set, so the data from that election year were reanalyzed.
The basic strategy was to repeat the analyses from Table 2, rearranged by
chosen (voted for) and rejected (voted against) candidates rather than by
Democratic and Republican candidates. The N is therefore reduced to respondents who reported voting for one or the other major candidate. All
analyses were performed separately in the pre- and postdecisional samples
to determine if the amount of rationalization in those two samples differed.
The data for all three dissonance~reducing rationalizations are shown in
Table 3, and the results are dramatic. The first two columns show the
mean number of reasons offered to vote for and against the chosen and
rejected candidate. If respondents were reducing dissonance by adding
consonant elements and subtracting dissonant elements, then they would
have reported many more reasons to vote for their chosen candidate and
many more reasons to vote against their rejected candidate. This was the
case for both predecisional and postdecisional samples. But the differences
are slight for the predecisional sample, and huge for the postdeeisional
sample. The predecisional group had .25 more positive things to say about
their ultimately chosen than rejected candidate, but the figure for the postdecisional groups is 1.57; likewise the predeeisional sample h a d . 18 fewer
bad things to say about their chosen candidate, compared to 1.31 fewer by
the postdecisional sample. 7
Columns 3 and 4 of Table 3 report the unstandardized regression
weights from analyses predicting evaluations of the chosen and rejected
candidates. These weights reflect the relative importance of the positive
and negative information predictors. Data from the postdecisional sample
exhibit exactly the pattern one would predict if dissonance were being
reduced by increasing the importance of consonant cognitions: Positive
information has relatively more weight in predicting evaluations of the
chosen candidate (7.41) than the rejected candidate (1.61), while negative
information has relatively more weight in predicting evaluations of the
rejected candidate (-15.43) than of the chosen candidate (-11.02). On the
other hand the pattern in the predeeisional sample is exactly the opposite:
Positive information has more weight in predicting evaluations of the ultimately rejected candidate (7.85) than the ultimately chosen candidate
(3.27), while negative information has more weight in predicting evaluations of the chosen (-10.69) than the rejected candidate (-7.96). Using this

1.88
-1.31

.40
1.57

7.41
(1.69)
1.61
(3.88)
5.80"

3.27
(3.93)
7.85
(5.30)
-4.58
-11.02
(2.63)
-15.34
(2.53)
-4.32"

-10.69
(4.03)
-7.96
(4.84)
2.73"

Regression Weights
Positive
Negative

Note: Standard errors are in parentheses.

~In these columns, the chosen candidate entry wa~ subtracted from the rejected candidate entry.

Difference

Rejected c a n d i d a t e

.57

-.18

.25

Difference
1.97

1.31

.97

Rejected c a n d i d a t e

Postdecisional
Chosen candidate

1.13

1.22

Predecisional
Chosen candidate

Mean Values
Positive
Negative

TABLE 3. Rationalization in 1972 Pre- and Postdecisional Samples

116
2.52

674
2.95
1.56 a

675
1.39

.69

112

N
1.83

Issue
Proximity

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second operationalization of rationalization, here is good evidence for it in

the postdecisional sample and no evidence for it in the predecisional sample.
The final criterion for rationalization is perceived issue distances to the
chosen and rejected candidates. The average issue proximities to the two
candidates on the six issues asked in the pre-election survey were computed. For readers unfamiliar with the CPS election studies, these issue
proximities are easily computed by contrasting respondents' self-placement
on 7-point attitude scales to their placements of the two major candidates
on those same scales. 8
The data, shown in the last column of Table 3, again suggest greater
rationalization in the postdeeisional sample. For the predeeisional sample,
the main issue distance is 1.83 for the chosen candidate and 2.52 for the
rejected candidate, a difference of .69. The comparable figures in the postdecisional sample are 1.39 and 2.95, a difference of 1.56.
By all three criteria of rationalization suggested by dissonance theory
then, there is clearly much more evidence that rationalization occurred in
the postdecisional sample than that it occurred in the predecisional sample. Since there are no absolute standards here, one cannot conclude from
the first and third tests that rationalization did occur in the postdecisional
sample and did not occur in the predecisional sample. Certainly one can
conclude, however, that if rationalization did occur, it occurred to a much
greater extent in the postdecisional sample. On the other hand, the results
from the second rationalization criterion, the relative importance of dissonant and consonant information, do suggest that rationalization did not
occur in the predecisional sample, while it did occur in the postdecisional
sample.
The above evidence on rationalization allows us to conclude fairly confidently that when respondents are contacted before they have decided for
whom to vote, negative information is more influential than positive information in candidate evaluations. From a psychometric standpoint, however, this is not yet conclusive evidence for negativity per se, for a crucial
assumption is that the positive and negative information that respondents
used in forming their evaluations was equivalent. If every bit of negative
information mentioned about a candidate were somehow very important
and extreme in some absolute sense (e.g., "his stance on national defense
could lead to nuclear holocaust") while every positive reason mentioned
were much less weighty (e.g., "I like his wife"), then any reasonable theory would predict that the negative information would have more weight
than the positive. From a political behavior standpoint, the possible nonequivalence of positive and negative reasons is surely an academic point. If
it turned out that negative reasons were, on the whole, more extreme than

NEGATIVIW IN POLITICS

367

the positive, that would be fine and valuable information in its own right.
We would learn an interesting fact about what type of information people
use in forming evaluations of presidential candidates. But from a psychological viewpoint the data would then have nothing to say about negativity as a more general phenomenon.
This one remaining possible confound in Study 2 cannot be precisely
examined. However, a somewhat imprecise test is possible. The reasons
offered to vote for and against candidates in 1968 and 1972 were grouped
into five broad categories (based loosely on the The American Voter's
6-factor model): party references, group references, personal qualities of
the candidate, issues (both domestic and foreign policy), and government
management. If one accepts the argument that issue voting is more rational, more weighty, and more extreme than considerations of the personal qualities of the candidates, then one could see if more issue-based
reasons are offered to vote against a candidate rather than for a candidate,
while more personal-quality reasons are offered to vote for a candidate
rather than against one. Happily no large differences in frequency occurred. Examining just the predecisional samples, just the postdecisional
samples, or combining the two together does not change matters much.
Likewise, looking at the mean number of reasons in each category offered
to vote for and against the two candidates or the percentage of respondents
offering any reason to vote for or against a candidate in each category, does
not change the general pattern. It is hard to argue by looking at the data
that there is any case to be made that the typical reason to vote against a
candidate is greater in importance or extremity than the typical reason to
vote for a candidate. Yet the great diversity of reasons from which the
independent variables were constructed remains a weakness in Study 2.
The final study corrects this weakness.
STUDY 3

The 1980 election study included a variety of new items describing the
candidates. These new items eentered around affects and ascribed personality traits (see Kinder, Peters, Abelson, and Fiske, 1982; Kinder, Fiske,
and Peters, 1980). The affect checklist asked respondents if they had ever
felt any of seven affects toward a candidate: anger, hope, fear, pride, disgust, sympathy, and fear. The trait inventory asked respondents the extent
to which they ascribed the traits moral, dishonest, weak, knowledgeable,
power hungry, inspiring, and strong leader to the candidates. The affect
checklist was designed to include both positive and negative feelings. The
trait inventory was designed to measure competence and integrity, but it
too included both positive and negative traits.

368

I.AI.I

These new items can be used as alternative measures of an excess of

positive or negative feelings toward a candidate. These new measures have
two advantages over the ones utilized in Study 2. First they are much
closer to the type of items typically used in psychology experiments, thus
increasing comparability. And second, there are only 14 traits and affects,
rather than thousands of idiosyncratic reasons to vote for or against a candidate. This will allow for more precise determination of the "extremity"
of each individual trait or affect. The basic strategy of Study 3 will be to
repeat the main regressions of Study 2, using these new items to construct
the independent variables.
The affect and trait measures described above were both collected in the
pre-election wave. The traits and affects were treated separately. The
number of positive affects felt about each candidate were summed, as
were the number of negative affects felt. Because there were an unequal
number of positive and negative affects, these two counts were standardized before they were treated exactly like the independent variables in
Study 2. That is, the number of negative affects were subtracted from the
number of positive affects to create the positive affect independent variable, while the number of positive affects was subtracted from the number
of negative affects to create the negative affect independent variable, with
all negative values for both variables collapsed to 0. The resulting variables represent an excess of positive over negative (or negative over positive) affect felt about a candidate.
Respondents were asked to rate how well each of the seven traits described each candidate on 4-point scales. The ratings of the four positive
traits were summed, as were the ratings of the three negative traits. Again
the unequal number of positive and negative traits required standardization of each sum before the excess of positive trait and excess of negative
trait attribution variables were created.
Separate regressions were specified using first the positive and negative
affect measures and then the positive and negative trait measures (plus the
measure of party identification) to predict the postelection feeling thermometer evaluation of Carter and Reagan. The predecisional and postdeeisional samples were examined separately.
The results are shown in Table 4. They are very similar to those in Table
2. In the predeeisional sample, for both affects and traits, the negative
affects and traits have much more influence than do the positive affects
and traits. In the postdecisional sample the pattern is the same, although
the differences between the positive and negative affects or traits are not so
large.
The possibility still remains that the individual traits and affects used to
construct the independent variables are unequally extreme. If the individ-

8.50
(1.12)
.52
(1.78)

9.13
(1.02) ~
7.35
(.91)

Positive

5.58
(2.27)
6.39
(2.96)

5.16
(1.49) b
3.92
(1.55)
-8.81
(1.95)
-7.74
(2.47)

-8.77
(1.45)
-8.80
(1.30)

-.28

-.38

-.42

-.38

.01

.33

.28

.29 a

-8.84
(1.08)
-2.98
(1.78)

-10.91
(.88)
-8.75
(.89)

-.08

-.35

-.33

-.40

Postdecisional Sample
Negative

.19

.21

.15

.22 a

Predeeisional Sample
Negative

12.90
(2.32)
27.26
(2.23)

13.19
(1.65)
13.74
(1.65)

Party

5.48
(3.19)
6.59
(3.75)

5.08
(2.13)
5.19
(2.47)

Party

.54

.23

.27

.24

.14

.13

.11

.13

Note: All data are from the 1980 NES/CPS traditional time series. Table entries are unstandardized regression weights.
~Standardized weights are in italics.
bStandardized errors are in parentheses.

Reagan

Traits
Carter

Reagan

Affects
Carter

Reagan

Traits
Carter

Reagan

Affects
Carter

Positive

TABLE 4. Affects and Traits in the Formation of Evaluations, 1980

366
372

.30

672

.49
.54

674

.57

134

.18

R2

130

249

.30
.30

249

.30

R~

LAU

370
TABLE 5. Extremity of Individual Affects and Traits, 1980
......................

c arier~

Reagan a

Carter b

9.0
11.8
8.1

12.8
~6.0
8.9

.42
.57
.28

9.6

12.6

.42

Negative affects
Angry
Afraid
Disgusted
Uneasy

-7.6
-17.6
-9.6
-11.5

-12.2
-10.8
-12.3
-8.2

-.47
-.75
-.53
-.58

Average

-14.1

-10.9

-. 57

Positive traits
Moral
Knowledgeable
Inspiring
Strong leader

9.9
16.0
23.5
30.6

16.1
13.2
13.0
18.4

.47
.78
1.25
1.60

Average

20.0

15.2

1.03

Negative traits
Dishonest
Weak
Power hungry

-22.8
-21.1
-13.0

-23.3
-17.1
-14.0

-. 75
-.91
-.59

Average

- 19.0

- 18.1

-. 75

Positive affects
Hopeful
Proud
Sympathetic
Average

Note: Table entries are deviations from overall means.

~Criterion is pre-eleetion feeling thermometer evaluation.
bCriterion is mean approval of Carter's job performance in five areas.

ual negative traits or affects were, on the whole, m o r e "negative" than the
positive traits and affects w e r e "positive," then no one should be surprised
t h a t the negative traits and affects have m o r e influence over final evaluations t h a n the positive ones do. This was the one problem that could only
be addressed indirectly in Study 2. To explore this possibility m o r e closely,
the m e a n feeling t h e r m o m e t e r evaluations of Carter and Reagan by respondents w h o attributed each affect or trait to t h e m are shown in Table 5.
T h e d a t a are also displayed as deviations f r o m the m e a n evaluation of each
candidate. These m e a n evaluations are an empirical measure of h o w ext r e m e each trait or affect is.~
T h e results clearly do not support the hypothesis that the negative traits
and affects are m o r e extreme than the positive ones. For example the m e a n
evaluation of Carter by those w h o checked "Proud" on the adjective check

NEGATIVITYIN POLITICS

371

list was 67.0, or 11.8 points above Carter's mean evaluation of 55.2. On
the other hand the mean evaluation of those who checked "Uneasy" was
43.8, or 11.4 points below Carter's mean evaluation. The means in Table 5
do not, of course, come from distinct groups of people; it is very possible
that the same respondent could check both proud and uneasy about a candidate. Nonetheless, the average evaluation of those who checked one of
the negative affects toward Carter was only slightly farther below Carter's
overall mean (-11.5) then the average evaluation of those who checked one
of the positive affects was above it (9.0). The pattern was the opposite for
Reagan, with those checking a positive affect toward him evaluating him
slightly farther above his overall mean (12.5) then those checking a negative affect were below it (-10.9). In both cases the differences are quite
small, and when the positive and negative traits are considered, the differences are smaller yet. In all four cases, however, the negative variable had
much more influence on final evaluations of the candidate than the positive, as shown already in Table 4. So any reservations about the nonequivalence of the positive and negative measures must be discarded.
GENERAL DISCUSSION

Negativity is a well-documented phenomenon in social psychology. It

would be fair to say, however, that the great bulk of that documentation
has come from rather artificial laboratory experiments on hypothetical
stimulus persons using trait adjectives as stimuli. These allow for very precise quantification, but they are not very lifelike. A primary goal of this
paper is to bring more external validity to the study of negativity, by using
well-known political figures as stimulus persons.
Two types of negativity effects were identified, negativity in the formation of evaluations and negativity as a consequence of evaluations. Solid
evidence for both of these types of negativity effects was found. Although
evidence for the first type of negativity effect was strictly provided only for
late deciders in campaigns, there is no reason to think that negativity as a
bias in political impressions is limited to late deciders. If comparable data
were available for early deciders, then presumably negativity would
present a strong bias in their perceptions as well.
Two potential confounds in the data were considered. The question of
rationalization was examined in Study 2 and found at most to be a small
problem in the crucial predecisional sample. The relative extremity of the
positive and negative variables was explored most precisely in Study 3 and
could not explain the negativity effect found in that study. Hence, the
major confounding or artifactual explanations for the results were all
found wanting. Therefore I feel confident in concluding that negativity is

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LAU

a fairly general phenomenon in political perception, as it is in many other

areas of human information processing.
One question still remains. Why is negative information more important than comparable positive information? This is a largely unanswered
question in social psychology as well as in this application to political behavior. A number of hypotheses have been suggested, falling into two main
groups.
A cost-orientation hypothesis views negativity as a motivational phenomenon. According to this hypothesis, people are more strongly motivated to avoid costs than to approach gains. The origins of this differential
motivation are not dear, but they are usually argued to be genetic, since it
is presumably adaptive for species survival to be alert to danger. By this
argument negativity should be particularly strong when the stakes are
high. A person making a simple bet should be more loss-conscious when
the bet involves a win or loss of $1,000 than when the bet involves a win or
loss of $1. This is a well-documented phenomenon in the decision-making
literature (e.g., Lubfer et al., 1972; Slovie, 1969) as indicated by the fact
that it is simply assumed by Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory
(1979).
The cost-orientation notion probably does not account completely for
negativity in political perception, since politics and most political figures
are fairly distant from people's everyday lives. Of course some radical
changes in laws or values might affect many people more directly, but in
general life goes on pretty much the same for most people regardless of
what politicians are doing.
The clear exception to this general rule is the president. He of all individual political figures can potentially have a great deal of control over
people's lives. The president can get the country into war, institute a draft,
or speed up or slow down the economy. If cost orientation is going to be
a viable explanation for negativity anywhere in political perception, it
should help explain negativity in the perception of presidents and presidential candidates.
A second type of explanation for negativity employs the familiar 3igureground hypothesis. Most of us, most of the time, live in a positive world.
We like a majority of the people around us, and we are satisfied with our
jobs, our families, our neighborhoods, our experiences with government
agencies, and our lives as a whole (Campbell, Converse, and Rodgers,
1975; Katz, Gutek, Kahn, and Barton, 1975; Sears, 1982). Against this
positive background, negative information stands out because of its relative infrequency. In Gestalt terms, negative information is figural against a
positive background. The figure-ground hypothesis, then, is very much a
perceptual explanation for negativity.

NEGATIVITYIN POLITICS

373

The political translation of the figure-ground hypothesis is clear. Most

people implicitly expect politicians to be like everyone else--basically
good, likable people. We are raised on stories about George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln, and other benevolent leaders. An overwhelming majority of current political figures are evaluated positively (Sears, 1982; Sears
and Whitney, 1974). For instance, Sears (1982) reports that 76% of a l l
political figures evaluated on Gallup polls between 1935 and 1975 were
evaluated positivel~ Again, it is against this positive political background
that negative information about a specific candidate may stand out. It is a
simple contrast effect: negative information stands out (or is figural) in a
generally positive context (or ground).
A future paper will present evidence for both of these hypotheses (see
Lau, 1979, for a preliminary discussion). To briefly anticipate the relevant
findings of this later paper, both the figure-ground and cost-orientation
hypotheses can help explain negativity in the perception of presidential
candidates, but as expected only the figure-ground hypothesis helps explain negativity in eongressional voting. The two explanations are not
competing hypotheses; they are both probably true in different situations.
At the present time it is sufficient to point out the different explanations for
negativity and the different implications those explanations have. When
negativity will be most pronounced and how it can be reduced if we so
desire (imagine a politician with a skeleton or two in a closet) depend on
the psychological mechanism underlying the phenomenon.
The current results do have clear implications for the rational politician
who seeks reelection. Here is clear empirical support for the traditional
advice of avoiding controversies and not taking strong stands that could
upset substantial portions of one's constituency. Being well thought of is
apparently not as important to a candidate as not being badly thought of.
Having positive facts associated with one's name is not as important as not
having negative facts associated with one's name. On the face of it, these
results could be interpreted to suggest that eandidates might profitably
spend more time in their campaigns stressing their opponent's shortcomings than their own strengths. If the naive (or wily) politician should take
the implications of these findings too far, however, I would be quick to
point out that acquiring the reputation of a "mudslinger" would result in
having a very negative fact or reputation associated with one's name. The
trick is being fortunate enough to have many negative things known about
your opponent without your having to bring those negative facts to light.
In any ease, these results make it clear that when voters are forming impressions of political candidates, the negative things they know are more
important than the positive things. Further, once those impressions have
been formed, any subsequent vengeance (resulting from negative evalua-

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LAU

tions) w i l l b e g r e a t e r t h a n a n y c o n s e q u e n t r e w a r d ( r e s u l t i n g f r o m p o s i t i v e
evaluation).

Acknowledgements, D o r o t h e a Marsh cheerfully typed m a n y drafts of this paper, for w h i c h I a m grateful. T h e d a t a utilized in this p a p e r w e r e m a d e available
by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. Of course,
the a u t h o r bears c o m p l e t e responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here. I w o u l d like to thank D a v i d Sears, T h a d Brown, Susan Fiske,Rod
Kiewiet, and j o h n Petrocik for c o m m e n t i n g on earlier versions of this manuscript.
NOTES
1. To illustrate that a simple count is inappropriate, consider two respondents, the first who
gives five reasons to vote for a candidate and four reasons to vote against him, the second
who gives no reasons to vote for that same candidate and three reasons to vote against
him. Now clearly the second respondent's basis for evaluation of the candidate is much
more negative than the first's, and one would expect the second respondent to evaluate
that candidate much more negatively than the first. However, by using simple counts of
positive and negative respondents, the first respondent would be "higher" on the negative
score than the second.
2. For simplicity, an intermediate step in the analysis which insured that these new variable
would be linearlyrelated to the dependent variables has been omitted. This intermediate
step involved representing each nonzero level of these new variables with a separate
dummy variable. This procedure allows one to check the linearity of the relation of the
new variables to the dependent variable. In most cases the relationship was linear, although it was occasionally necessary to collapse adjacent categories to more closely approximate linearity. It was desirable to have a single measure of positive information and
a single measure of negative information, rather than two sets of dummy variables, because the comparison of positive to negative information would therefore be greatly facilitated.
In 1968 and 1980, because so few respondents were at the highest (5) level of the
positive and negative information variables, the highest level was collapsed into the adjacent (4) categor~ Hence both the positive and negative information variables actually ran
from 0 to 4. In 1972, only three reasons for voting for and against each candidate were
recorded. In this year these new variables had possible values between 0 and 3. I might
add that no peculiarities in the resulting positive and negative information variables can
explain the results to be presented below. Sometimes the variance of the positive variable
is slightly higher; sometimes the variance of the negative variable is slightly higher. Likewise, there is no systematic difference in the means of the two crucial variables.
3. In 1976, the feeling thermometers were asked only in Wave 1. Hence the 1976 data are
not utilized here.
4, This dummy variable equaled I if the respondent identified with the party of the candidate being rated, and equaled 0 otherwise. The postdecisional group was initially broken
into those who "know all along" whom they would vote for, and those who decided
sometime during the campaign but before they were interviewed. These two groups did
not differ substantially, however, and for simplicity they were collapsed together.
5. In 1968, for instance, the predecisional group had approximately $50 more in annual
family income, . 1 of a year less education; they were about a year younger, 4 % more
white, .1% more female; and they were about .1 or a point less interested (on a 3-point
scale) in a campaign. Only when the full 7-point Party ID scale is folded at its midpoint
are there any significant differences in the samples, and even here the difference is only
.24 (on a 0-3 scale). As one might expect, the predecisional group is somewhat less partisan.

NEGATIVITYIN POUTICS

375

6. This type of rationalization is also predicted by Hieder's (1958) theory of cognitive balance. This test of rationalization was suggested by Brody and Page (1972).
7. Controlling on the greater verbosity of the postdecisional sample reduces the magnitude
of the differences somewhat, but not enough to change the conclusion that, using this
criterion of rationalization, much more rationalization was occurring in the postdecisional sample.
8. Absolute differences (ignoring signs) between respondent's positions and their perception
of the position of each candidate were computed for all six issues in the pre-eleetion
survey for which appropriate data were available. These distances were then averaged to
form a single overall measure of issue proximity. Respondents with missing data on more
than half of the possible issues were excluded from the analyses.
9. The 1980 election study had a more complicated design than the previous election studies, involving three separate samples and interviews at various times throughout the campaign. For comparability; only that part of the 1980 study that is comparable to previous
election studies is employed here.
10. The criterion is most appropriately the feeling thermometer evaluation of the candidate
during the pre-election survey--the same time the traits and affects were collected and
several months before the dependent variables used in Table 4 were collected. A second
criterion was available for President Carter only; Prespondents were asked the extent to
which they approved his job performance in five areas: the Iranian hostage crisis, inflation, unemployment, the energy problem, and overall job approval. These rating on 5point scales were averages together and used as a second criterion for determining extremity. The results did not differ from those presented in Table 5, and hence are not
discussed further.

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