Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning

Missing ingredients in political advertising: The right formula for political sophistication and candidate credibility

This paper presents and tests a theory of how negative political advertising affects individuals in US elections. The theory begins with the claim that negative advertising depresses public mood. Mood is then used as information in judgments, it is argued, but more by low than by high political sophisticates: high sophisticates recognize and discount the effects of the advertisements, low sophisticates do not, instead attributing their depressed mood to their own inability to understand politics, to the political system, or to an aspect of the election such as an unappealing choice of candidates. These judgments may then affect behavior, implying that negative advertising campaigns may alter the composition of the electorate in US elections. The theory is tested in a survey experiment on a national sample. Analysis confirms the impact of negative advertising on public mood, and some relationship from mood to judgments for low sophisticates.

This paper uses panel data from 282 cities in China from 2006 to 2022 and a spatial double difference model to explore the impact of science and technology finance pilot policies on green innovation in cities. Research findings: The implementation of S&T and finance policies not only promotes green innovation in pilot cities, but also has a positive spatial spillover effect on neighbouring cities. This positive spillover effect mainly exists within a 150 km radius of the pilot cities, and the policy effect gradually diminishes with distance. Pilot S&T and finance policies promote urban green innovation mainly through two transmission pathways: government intervention and financial resource allocation efficiency effects. Heterogeneity tests indicate that the green innovation effects of the pilot policy are greater in the eastern and central regions than in the western region. The findings of the study can provide effective support for the further promotion of the science and technology and finance pilot policies, and provide important insights for urban green development.

Political candidates use a variety of negative campaigning strategies, and these attacks have different degrees of success. To explain this, I first introduce a formal model of campaign strategy to show when candidates will engage in negative campaigning and how it can affect election results. Whether candidates choose negative campaigning depends upon three factors: the voters' preconceptions about political candidates' the voters' preferred dimension, and the candidates' character traits. I show that eliminating negative campaigning has an ambiguous effect on voter welfare. Then, I extend the formal model of campaigning to include situations in which candidates campaign dishonestly. I find that allowing this is strictly inferior for voter welfare. Often this is because whenever lying becomes more probable, all campaigns start to look the same. In order to understand the implications of the formal model, I use multiple empirical testing methods. I use laboratory experiments to test how voter beliefs and voter behavior affect the frequency and content of candidates' negative campaigning. I find support for the above comparative statics hypothesis about when candidates are more likely to negatively campaign. Furthermore, the laboratory results are better explained by a quantal response equilibrium model in which voters are risk averse and are more naive than sophisticated in their Bayesian updating ability. I next consider how negative campaigning translates into votes. From survey responses, I show empirical support for candidate tactics that target specific segments of voters based upon their predilections toward accepting negativity in campaigns. One way candidates attack their rivals is by trying to make voters afraid of them. From a laboratory experiment in which subjects made social judgments about pairs of candidates who ran against each other in real elections, we found that the candidates chosen by subjects as more physically threatening had actually lost 65% of the real elections. Such correlation could arise from common neural mechanisms engaged when viewers make social judgments about faces, and when voters evaluate candidates. This was shown in two independent fMRI studies in which subjects again made judgments about images of unfamiliar politicians who had run in real elections. We found that for judgments of threat, election loss correlated with activity in the insula and ventral anterior cingulate cortex, structures known to be involved in processing negative emotions. These findings suggest that voters are influenced by negative emotions elicited by a candidate’s mere appearance. Finally, we examine the role of candidate fear in explaining voter choice in presidential elections using ANES data from 1980-2004. We find that certain groups of voters are more susceptible to fear appeals. After controlling for the factors commonly thought to affect voter decision-making, we also find further evidence that fear of presidential candidates directly affects vote choice. The results have implications for future research on negative political communication, as they suggest that threatening first impressions can harm a candidate's electoral chances. They also show that candidates who wish to successfully utilize negative campaigning must tailor their campaigns not only to reflect the weaknesses of the opponent but also to insure that their message is salient to the specific group of targeted voters.

There are ongoing questions in the literature and in the field about why, in spite of voter dislike, negative advertising continues to get widespread usage in politics. In a field experiment that assessed responses to actual ads shortly before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, we found that negative advertising produced more critical responses than positive advertising even for the voters' favored candidate. Yet, our findings suggest that the effects of negative advertising are multidimensional; four different effects—reinforcement, backlash, defensive reactance, and position change—were identified. We discuss the costs and potential returns from these effects and the limitations of this study, and we propose directions for future research.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the spatial fluctuation spillover effect of green total factor productivity (GTFP) under the influence of Internet development.Design/methodology/approachUsing panel data from 283 cities in China for the period 2003–2016, this paper explores the spatial fluctuation spillover effect of internet development on GTFP by applying the spatial autoregressive with autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model (SARspARCH).FindingsThe results of Moran's I test of the residual term and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) value indicate that the GTFP has a spatial fluctuation spillover effect, and the estimated results of the SARspARCH model are more accurate than the spatial autoregressive (SAR) model and the spatial autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (spARCH) model. Specifically, the internet development had a positive spatial fluctuation spillover effect on GTFP in 2003, 2011, 2012 and 2014, and the volatility spillover effect weakens the positive spillover effect of internet development on GTFP. Moreover, Internet development has a significant positive spatial fluctuation spillover effect on GTFP averagely in eastern China and internet-based cities.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study provide digital solutions for policymakers in improving the level of GTFP in China, with more emphasis on regional synergistic governance to ensure growth.Originality/valueThis paper expands the research ideas for spatial econometric models and provides a more valuable reference for China to achieve green development.

By comparing parallel field and survey experiments testing compliance with international standards on corporate transparency, we highlight potential problems in the external validity of survey experimental designs. We performed a field experiment using deception in which we requested an anonymous business incorporation from nearly 4,000 corporate service providers in more than 180 countries. Subsequently, we conducted a survey experiment with the same providers using similar treatment conditions, but with informed consent to participate in a research study. Comparing responses and response rates corroborates-from a new angle and with additional implications-survey researchers' caveats about selection bias and social desirability. Our conclusions on the relative external validity and different substantive results produced by different experimental designs constitutes an important cautionary note given the increased popularity of survey experiments within international relations and political science more generally.

This article describes how political parties in parliamentary election campaigns in Western Europe make use of negative campaigning and examines whether their behaviour differs from that of candidates competing in US presidential election campaigns. Furthermore, it theorises how the differences and similarities between negative campaigning in these countries can be explained. First of all, this comparative study adds to the development of a more general theory on negative campaigning. Second, the study presents interesting new data measuring the use of negative campaigning by 31 political parties in 23 parliamentary election campaigns in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands between 1980 and 2006. Results show that there are no signs of an increase in negative campaigning and that the majority of attacks are issue attacks. However, there are systematic differences in the overall level of negative campaigning between these countries and we suspect that the type of party system could be the main explanatory factor.

Introduction The current study examines the effectiveness of a newly developed work-family intervention program on one’s own work-to-family and family-to-work spillovers (both positive and negative) and work-family balance self-efficacy among Japanese dual-earner workers with pre-school child(ren). Methods The study design was a single-group pre-post comparison. This intervention program was conducted as a pilot study of TWIN (Tokyo Work-life INterface) study III. Participants were eleven workers of a private company in Japan. They were all dual-earner workers with pre-school child(ren). The program consisted of seven 45 min sessions with a two-week interval between them. The outcomes were assessed by a questionnaire at baseline (Time 1) and post-intervention (Time 2). The paired t-test was conducted as an indicator of intervention effect. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d based on pre-post score differences (Trial registration: UMIN Clinical Trials Registry UMI25803). Results The program showed a medium and favourable intervention effect on work-to-family positive spillover (Cohen’s d=0.53), and small and favourable intervention effects on family-to-work positive spillover (Cohen’s d=0.33) and work-family balance self-efficacy (Cohen’s d=0.39). Unexpectedly, it showed a significantly small and adverse effect on work-to-family negative spillover (Cohen’s d=0.33). Conclusion The newly developed work-family intervention program was found effective in improving work-family positive spillover (both work-to family and family-to work) and work-family balance self-efficacy among Japanese dual-earner workers with pre-school child(ren).

Rural financial development is deemed essential for eliminating poverty. In China, successive governments have initiated a series of financial development plans to reduce poverty since the launch of economic reform in the late 1970s. However, there is a rising concern about whether financial development can reduce poverty in China. This study uses a panel dataset of 30 provinces (out of 31) in mainland China from 1997 to 2015 to examine the effect of rural financial development on poverty reduction. We employ a spatial panel model to investigate whether rural financial development has a positive spatial spillover effect. Moreover, we use the instrumental variable method to address the possible bidirectional causal effect between rural financial development and poverty reduction. Our study confirms that rural financial development does reduce poverty and simultaneously widen the urban-rural income gap. We further find that rural financial development has a positive spatial spillover effect on poverty alleviation and that the conventional panel model (e.g., fixed effects method) may underestimate the effect of rural financial development, as it ignores the spatial spillover effect.

This study examines the effects of negative political advertising on responses to a Senate and a gubernatorial race. Responses measured include: (1) knowledge about each race; (2) knowledge about a civics training media campaign; (3) confidence in knowledge about the races; (4) mood responses; (5) political cynicism; (6) political self-efficacy; and (7) voting behavior. The survey findings suggest that negative ads are associated with negative feelings toward the political races, the state, and the country; higher political cynicism; and lower perception of political self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for policy concerning political advertising are discussed.

Persuasion and Gender: Experimental Evidence from Two Political Campaigns

The 2000 Mexican presidential race culminated in the election of opposition candidate Vicente Fox and the end of seven decades of one-party rule. This book, which traces changes in public opinion and voter preferences over the course of the race, represents the most comprehensive treatment of campaigning and voting behavior in an emerging democracy. It challenges the “modest effects” paradigm of national election campaigns that has dominated scholarly research in the field. Chapters cover authoritarian mobilization of voters, turnout patterns, electoral cleavages, party strategies, television news coverage, candidate debates, negative campaigning, strategic voting, issue-based voting, and the role of the 2000 election in Mexico's political transition. Theoretically-oriented introductory and concluding chapters situate Mexico's 2000 election in the larger context of Mexican politics and of cross-national research on campaigns. Collectively, these contributions provide crucial insights into Mexico's new politics, with important implications for elections in other countries.

In a literature where different research approaches generate inconsistent effects, we examine negative TV advertising effects on public support ratings of presidential candidates over time. Weekly national advertising and poll data from 2011 and 2012 were analyzed via (a) pooled time series analysis with growth curve modeling and (b) individual time serial dependency analysis with autoregressive integrated moving average. Study results support a social influence model derived from attribution theory, wherein negative TV ads did, in fact, influence poll results or public support ratings. In particular, spending on negative advertising increased the support for the sponsor of such ads. We also uncover a reciprocal effect of negative advertising between the competing candidates over time, such that spending on negative advertising attacking Mitt Romney predicted spending on advertising attacking Barack Obama in about 4 weeks at Lag 3 and Lag 4. Findings establishing the efficacy of negative advertising are discussed in the context of game theory.

This study applies a spatial econometric model to examine the impact of three-dimensional distance on interprovincial tourism economic spillover effects using panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019. The impacts of technological innovation, ecological environment, informatization level, industrial structure, infrastructure facilities, and location, on the indirect effect of the tourism economy are comparatively analyzed. It explores the regional characteristics and developmental changes of tourism economic spillover. The results show that, first, based on the three spatial matrices, the direct and total effect values of technological innovation are the largest when close to each other, and technological innovation among provinces with higher economic volumes significantly promotes positive interprovincial tourism economic spillover. Second, ecological environment is the main promoting factor of positive tourism economic spillover among neighboring provinces in China’s western region. Third, industrial structure optimization shows a significant positive spatial spillover effect. Fourth, with gradual infrastructure improvement, the influence of infrastructure facilities on the spillover effect of interprovincial tourism economy weakens gradually. Fifth, improved information technology levels can effectively promote positive spatial spillover of the tourism economy. Sixth, the influence of location on the positive spatial spillover of the interprovincial tourism economy shows a gradually increasing trend.