Headlines win elections: mere exposure to fictitious news media alters voting behavior
Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-349845
- Repeatedly encountering a stimulus biases the observer’s affective response and evaluation of the stimuli. Here we provide evidence for a causal link between mere exposure to fictitious news reports and subsequent voting behavior. In four pre-registered online experiments, participants browsed through newspaper webpages and were tacitly exposed to names of fictitious politicians. Exposure predicted voting behavior in a subsequent mock election, with a consistent preference for frequent over infrequent names, except when news items wereRepeatedly encountering a stimulus biases the observer’s affective response and evaluation of the stimuli. Here we provide evidence for a causal link between mere exposure to fictitious news reports and subsequent voting behavior. In four pre-registered online experiments, participants browsed through newspaper webpages and were tacitly exposed to names of fictitious politicians. Exposure predicted voting behavior in a subsequent mock election, with a consistent preference for frequent over infrequent names, except when news items were decidedly negative. Follow-up analyses indicated that mere media presence fuels implicit personality theories regarding a candidate’s vigor in political contexts. News outlets should therefore be mindful to cover political candidates as evenly as possible.…
Author: | Roland PfisterORCiD, Katharina A. Schwarz, Patricia Holzmann, Moritz ReisORCiD, Kumar Yogeeswaran, Wilfried Kunde |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-349845 |
Document Type: | Journal article |
Faculties: | Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften (Philos., Psycho., Erziehungs- u. Gesell.-Wissensch.) / Institut für Psychologie |
Language: | English |
Parent Title (English): | PloS One |
Year of Completion: | 2023 |
Volume: | 18 |
Issue: | 8 |
Article Number: | e0289341 |
Source: | PloS One (2023) 18:8, e0289341. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289341 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289341 |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie |
Tag: | India; Twitter; United States; behavior; elections; metaanalysis; personality; political theory |
Release Date: | 2024/05/24 |
Licence (German): | CC BY: Creative-Commons-Lizenz: Namensnennung 4.0 International |