Attitude Manipulation and Voting Intentions.
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| Title: | Attitude Manipulation and Voting Intentions. |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Berk, Nicolai (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Political Behavior. Mar2026, Vol. 48 Issue 1, p411-433. 23p. |
| Subjects: | Political attitudes, Voting research, Rational choice theory, Partisanship, Ballots, Persuasion (Rhetoric), Cognitive dissonance, Attitude change (Psychology) |
| Geographic Terms: | Germany |
| Abstract: | A large body of research documents the substantial effects of persuasive communication on political attitudes. However, opinion manipulation often represents merely an intermediate goal in a greater effort to affect citizens' primary instrument of political influence: voting. From a rational model of voting, it follows that attitudinal persuasion should have downstream consequences for voting intentions. In this manuscript, I outline a theory of when persuasion effects on policy attitudes should translate into voting intentions, drawing on rational choice as well as identity-based theories of voting behavior. I hypothesize that citizens should resolve cognitive dissonance emerging from an increased or decreased distance to a party's issue position by either updating their inclination to vote for the party or by changing their issue position. Partisans should adapt their issue attitude, following their party, whereas non-partisans should update their voting intentions to reflect the party's issue distance. I test these pre-registered hypotheses in a representative survey experiment fielded in Germany (N = 3004). The results suggest that attitudinal changes as a result of persuasive communication do not translate into voting intentions, irrespective of respondents' attachment to a given party. However, citizens adjust their attitudes to support their preferred party when learning about the party's policy position. These results underline the stability of voting intentions, even in the context of attitudinal change, and suggest that cue-taking is a more conscious process than often theorized. Most importantly, my results contradict a mechanistic understanding of the connection between policy preferences and voting intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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