Moderators of Candidate Name‐Order Effects in Elections

An Experiment

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6337477
AutoresNuri Kim (0000-0003-0004-0996, Stanford University), Jon A Krosnick (0000-0003-0336-1613, Stanford University), Jon Krosnick (Stanford University), Daniel Casasanto (0000-0002-2021-1580, University of Chicago)
Año2015
Volumen36
Número5
Páginas525-542
Fecha de publicación2015-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolitical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/pops.12178
OpenAlexW2161543307
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas25
Referencias citadas46

Past studies of elections have shown that candidates whose names were listed at the beginning of a list on a ballot often received more votes by virtue of their position. This article tests speculations about the cognitive mechanisms that might be responsible for producing the effect. In an experiment embedded in a large national Internet survey, participants read about the issue positions of two hypothetical candidates and voted for one of them in a simulated election in which candidate name order was varied. The expected effect of position appeared and was strongest (1) when participants had less information about the candidates on which to base their choices, (2) when participants felt more ambivalent about their choices, (3) among participants with more limited cognitive skills, and (4) among participants who devoted less effort to the candidate evaluation process. The name‐order effect was greater among left‐handed people when the candidate names were arrayed horizontally, but there was no difference between left‐ and right‐handed people when the names were arrayed vertically. These results reinforce some broad theoretical accounts of the cognitive process that yield name‐order effects in elections

Ambivalence · Ballot · Cognition · Economics · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Voting · Law · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology · Survey Methodology and Nonresponse