How political scandals affect the electorate.

Autor(en)
Christian von Sikorski, Raffael Heiss, Jörg Matthes
Abstrakt

Political scandals are highly relevant for political decision-making and democratic processes more generally. While most prior research employed experimental and cross-sectional survey studies, we tested the effects of a political scandal in the context of the 2017 Austrian Parliamentary Elections using panel data (N = 559, both waves). Importantly, we used a unique data set collected before and just after a major scandal broke in the final election phase. Drawing on a motivated reasoning perspective, attribution theory, and the inclusion/exclusion model, our results revealed a scandal-eroding effect particularly damaging a candidate's own base of supporters and leaving followers in disappointment. The findings also showed a negative scandal-spillover effect for candidate supporters high in scandal knowledge decreasing political trust toward other politicians. Importantly, the results revealed that negative candidate evaluations are not a necessary precondition for negative spillover effects on political trust more generally.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Externe Organisation(en)
MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Universität Koblenz-Landau
Journal
Political Psychology
Band
41
Seiten
549-568
Anzahl der Seiten
20
ISSN
0162-895X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12638
Publikationsdatum
06-2020
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Philosophy, Social Psychology, Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/how-political-scandals-affect-the-electorate(9379e503-c1f2-4caf-bba6-d11544fabaaa).html