Trick of the traits: A conceptual replication of the trait ownership hypothesis
- Author(s)
- Loes Aaldering, Sophie Lecheler
- Abstract
The theory of trait ownership argues that parties can ‘own’ character traits related to their ideological stances and that successfully trespassing onto the trait territory of competing parties yields the most electoral gain. An abundance of observational studies provides strong empirical support for the trait ownership theory in the context of the US. This study provides a conceptual replication, testing the theory’s universality by studying trait ownership and its effects in the European multi-party context, employing an experimental design. The results of two studies among German citizens show that trait ownership is important for negative trait evaluations, i.e., candidate evaluations drop most strongly when candidates are negatively portrayed on their owned traits. However, trait ownership does not seem to matter for the impact of positive trait evaluations on candidate evaluations, nor for the effects on vote choice. Thereby, the paper shows that trait ownership is strongly context-dependent.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication
- External organisation(s)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- Journal
- Acta Politica: international journal of political science
- ISSN
- 0001-6810
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-025-00390-w
- Publication date
- 07-2025
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 508007 Communication science
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Political Science and International Relations
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/a92af84e-5f23-4143-9bd9-f5fab638c4cb