Social group appeals in party rhetoric

Author(s)
Lena Maria Huber, Thomas Meyer, Markus Wagner
Abstract

Can parties and politicians increase support for their policy positions by adding appeals to social groups? Social groups provide simple cues that heuristically help voters to decide whether they support a policy. We argue that the effect of group appeals crucially depends on respondents’ group affect and the valence of the group appeal. Among those with a positive attitude toward a group, adding a positive group appeal to a policy statement should increase support for the policy statement, while adding a negative appeal (i.e., against the group) should decrease support. Among those with negative attitudes toward a group, the opposite effects should occur. We test our expectations with two survey experiments. Our results indicate that the addition of group appeals substantially influences the evaluations of voters and leads to higher polarization. Social group appeals are useful to political parties, but these rhetorical tools may reinforce attitude polarization and group stereotypes.

Organisation(s)
Department of Government
External organisation(s)
Universität Mannheim
Journal
Journal of Politics
Volume
86
Pages
1304-1318
No. of pages
15
ISSN
0022-3816
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1086/729946
Publication date
2023
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506014 Comparative politics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Sociology and Political Science
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/00057672-e574-4e56-b244-efc8c14e2ddd