Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-25T18:42:37.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scandal, Hypocrisy, and Resignation: How Partisanship Shapes Evaluations of Politicians’ Transgressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2020

Adam D. Wolsky Open the ORCID record for Adam D. Wolsky [Opens in a new window]
Adam D. Wolsky*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN37203, USA
*
Email: adam.d.wolsky@vanderbilt.edu, Twitter: @adamdwolsky
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Hypocrisy is a common feature of political scandal. Yet, it is unclear how individuals evaluate hypocritical misconduct differently based on a transgressing politician’s partisan identity. Using survey experiments, this article assesses how exposure to different frames of wrong doing involving actual members of congress spill over on to the evaluation of parties distinctly among co-partisans and out-partisans. I find that Republicans feel more positive towards their party after reading about the resignation of a hypocritical co-partisan politician compared to merely reading about the politician’s hypocrisy. In addition, Republicans feel warmer about their party when reading about a hypocritical versus non-hypocritical out-party transgression. However, Democrats do not change their party evaluations after being exposed to different scandal frames involving co-partisan and out-partisan politicians. This suggests that Republicans and Democrats have different attitudes towards hypocrisy and/or differently apply information about individuals when evaluating parties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 2022 , pp. 74 - 87
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Funding was made possible by the Research on Individuals, Politics, and Society (RIPS) Lab at Vanderbilt University. I would like to thank Cindy Kam, Liz Zechmeister, participants at the RIPS lab, my graduate student colleagues at Vanderbilt, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors at the Journal of Experimental Political Science for their invaluable feedback on previous drafts of this manuscript. The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/P7RYPP. The author declares no conflict of interest.

References

Bhatti, Yosef, Hansen, Kasper M., and Olsen, Asmus Leth. 2013. Political Hypocrisy: The Effect of Political Scandals on Candidate Evaluations. Acta Politica 48(4): 408–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bisgaard, Martin. 2015. Bias Will Find a Way: Economic Perceptions, Attributions of Blame, and Partisan-Motivated Reasoning during Crisis. Journal of Politics 77(3): 849–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boas, Taylor C., Christenson, Dino P., and Glick, David M.. 2020. Recruiting Large Online Samples in the United States and India: Facebook, Mechanical Turk, and Qualtrics. Political Science Research and Methods 8(2): 232–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botero, Sandra, Cornejo, Rodrigo Castro, Gamboa, Laura, Pavao, Nara, and Nickerson, David W.. 2015. Says Who? An Experiment on Allegations of Corruption and Credibility of Sources. Political Research Quarterly 68(3): 493–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botero, Sandra, Cornejo, Rodrigo Castro, Gamboa, Laura, Pavao, Nara, and Nickerson, David W.. 2019a. Are All Types of Wrongdoing Created Equal in the Eyes of Voters? Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. Published online first 12 August 2019. doi: 10.1080/17457289.2019.1651322.Google Scholar
Botero, Sandra, Cornejo, Rodrigo Castro, Gamboa, Laura, Pavao, Nara, and Nickerson, David W.. 2019b. Under Friendly Fire: An Experiment on Partisan Press, Fragmented Opposition and Voting Behavior. Electoral Studies 60: 102044. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2019.04.008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, James, Ganiel, Gladys, and Hyde, Mark S.. 2000. Scandal and Political Candidate Image. Southeastern Political Review 28(4): 747–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coppock, Alexander and McClellan, Oliver A.. 2019. Validating the Demographic, Political, Psychological, and Experimental Results Obtained from a New Source of Online Survey Respondents. Research and Politics 6(1): 2053168018822174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cortina, Jeronimo and Rottinghaus, Brandon. 2017. Does Partisanship Stop at Scandal’s Edge? Partisan Resiliency and the Survival of Political Scandal. American Review of Politics 36(1): 2–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doherty, David, Dowling, Conor M., and Miller, Michael G.. 2011. Are Financial or Moral Scandals Worse? It Depends. Political Science & Politics 44(4): 749–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doherty, David, Dowling, Conor M., and Miller, Michael G.. 2014. Does Time Heal All Wounds? Sex Scandals, Tax Evasion, and the Passage of Time. Political Science & Politics 47(2): 357–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, James N. and Leeper, Thomas J.. 2012. Learning More from Political Communication Experiments: Pretreatment and Its Effects. American Journal of Political Science 56(4): 875–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erisen, Cengiz, Redlawsk, David P., and Erisen, Elif. 2018. Complex Thinking as a Result of Incongruent Information Exposure. American Politics Research 46(2): 217–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esser, Frank and Hartung, Uwe. 2004. Nazis, Pollution, and No Sex: Political Scandals as a Reflection of Political Culture in Germany. American Behavioral Scientist 47(8): 1040–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischle, Mark. 2000. Mass Response to the Lewinsky Scandal: Motivated Reasoning or Bayesian Updating? Political Psychology 21(1): 135–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Lauren. 2017. ‘I think the President’s mad as hell’: Hill Republicans fume over Price’s travel costs. CNN (September 29). Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/politics/congress-reaction-tom-price-flights/index.html Google Scholar
Funk, Carolyn L. 1996. The Impact of Scandal on Candidate Evaluations: An Experimental Test of the Role of Candidate Traits. Political Behavior 18(1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaines, Brian J., Kuklinski, James H., Quirk, Paul J., Buddy, Peyton, and Verkuilen, Jay. 2007. Same Facts, Different Interpretations: Partisan Motivation and Opinion on Iraq. Journal of Politics 69(4): 957–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gambino, Lauren. 2017. Tom Price Resigns as Health Secretary Over Private Flights and Trump Criticism. The Guardian (September 29). Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/29/tom-price-resigns-health-secretary-private-flights-trump Google Scholar
Graham, Jesse, Haidt, Jonathan, and Nosek, Brian A.. 2009. Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96(5): 1029–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iyengar, Shanto, Sood, Gaurav, and Lelkes, Yphtach. 2012. Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly 76(3): 405–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto and Westwood, Sean J.. 2015. Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization. American Journal of Political Science 59(3): 690–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. 2013. Partisan Polarization in American Politics: A Background Paper. Presidential Studies Quarterly 43(4): 688–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, Jillian J., Roseanna, Sommers, Paul, Bloom, and Rand, David G.. 2017. Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling. Psychological Science 28(3): 356–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kennedy, Ryan, Clifford, Scott, Burleigh, Tyler, Waggoner, Philip D., Jewell, Ryan, and Winter, Nicholas J. G.. 2020. The Shape of and Solutions to the MTurk Quality Crisis. Political Science Research and Methods. Published online first 24 April 2020. doi: 10.1017/psrm.2020.6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laurent, Sean M., Clark, Brian A. M., Walker, Stephannie, and Wiseman, Kimberly D.. 2014. Punishing Hypocrisy: The Roles of Hypocrisy and Moral Emotions in Deciding Culpability and Punishment of Criminal and Civil Moral Transgressors. Cognition and Emotion 28(1): 59–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, Francis L. F. 2018. The Spillover Effects of Political Scandals: The Moderating Role of Cynicism and Social Media Communications. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 95(3): 714–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levay, Kevin E., Jeremy, Freese, and Druckman, James N.. 2016. The Demographic and Political Composition of Mechanical Turk Samples. SAGE Open 6(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddow, Rachel. 2017. Tom Price Private Plane Scandal Snowballs with New Revelations. MSNBC (September 28). Retrieved from https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/tom-price-private-plane-scandal-snowballs-with-new-revelations-1057591363968 Google Scholar
Maier, Jürgen. 2011. The Impact of Political Scandals on Political Support: An Experimental Test of Two Theories. International Political Science Review 32(3): 283–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, Lilliana. 2015. ‘I Disrespectfully Agree’: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization. American Journal of Political Science 59(1): 128–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, Monika L., Schwartz, Douglas, and Vallejo, Sebastian. 2015. Talking the Talk but Not Walking the Walk: Public Reactions to Hypocrisy in Political Scandal. American Politics Research 43(6): 952–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ouwerkerk, Jaap W. and van Dijk, Wilco W.. 2014. Intergroup Rivalry and Schadenfreude. In Schadenfreude: Understanding Pleasure at the Misfortune of Others, eds. van Dijk, Wilco W. and Ouwerkerk, Jaap W.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 186–99.Google Scholar
Powell, Caitlin A.J. and Smith, Richard H.. 2013. Schadenfreude Caused by the Exposure of Hypocrisy in Others. Self and Identity 12(4): 413–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Vincent and Czilli, Edward J.. 1996. Modeling Patterns of News Recognition and Recall. Journal of Communication 46(2): 55–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redlawsk, David P. 2002. Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration ? Testing the Effects of Motivated Reasoning on Political Decision Making on Political Decision Making. Journal of Politics 64(4): 1021–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redlawsk, David P., Civettini, Andrew J.W., and Emmerson, Karen M.. 2010. The Affective Tipping Point: Do Motivated Reasoners Ever ‘Get It’? Political Psychology 31(4): 563–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rempala, Daniel M., Okdie, Bradley M., and Garvey, Kilian J.. 2016. Articulating Ideology: How Liberals and Conservatives Justify Political Affiliations Using Morality-Based Explanations. Motivation and Emotion 40(5): 703–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pramuk, Jacob. 2017. Tom Price, who reportedly used costly private jets, once slammed government planes as ‘fiscal irresponsibility run amok.’ Cnbc.com (September 20). Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/hhs-sec-tom-price-once-slammed-congress-private-jets.html Google Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F. and Roche, Cameron. 2017. Misinformation and Motivated Reasoning: Responses to Economic News in a Politicized Environment. Public Opinion Quarterly 81(1): 86–110.Google Scholar
Schurtz, D. Ryan, Combs, David, Hoogland, Charles, and Smith, Richard H.. 2014. Schadenfreude in Sports and Politics: A Social Identity Perspective. In Schadenfreude: Understanding Pleasure at the Misfortune of Others, eds. van Dijk, W. W. and Ouwerkerk, J. W. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 170–85.Google Scholar
Schwarz, Norbert and Bless, Herbert. 1992. Scandals and the Public’s Trust in Politicians: Assimilation and Contrast Effects. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18(5): 574–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Severson, Alexander W. 2018. Partisan Affiliation and the Evaluation of Non-Prototypical Candidates. Journal of Experimental Political Science 5(2): 121–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Sikorski, Christian, Heiss, Raffael, and Matthes, Jörg. 2020. How Political Scandals Affect the Electorate. Tracing the Eroding and Spillover Effects of Scandals with a Panel Study. Political Psychology 41(3): 549–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Sikorski, Christian and Herbst, Christina. 2020. Not Practicing What They Preached! Exploring Negative Spillover Effects of News about Ex-Politicians’ Hypocrisy on Party Attitudes, Voting Intentions, and Political Trust. Media Psychology 23(3): 436–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taber, Charles S. and Lodge, Milton. 2006. Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50(3): 755–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, John B. 2000. Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Winters, Matthew S. and Weitz-Shapiro, Rebecca. 2013. Lacking Information or Condoning Corruption: When Do Voters Support Corrupt Politicians? Comparative Politics 45(4): 418–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winters, Matthew S. and Weitz-Shapiro, Rebecca. 2015. Political Corruption and Partisan Engagement: Evidence from Brazil. Journal of Politics in Latin America 7(1): 45–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolsky, Adam D. 2020. Replication Data for: Scandal, Hypocrisy, and Resignation: How Partisanship Shapes Evaluations of Politicians’ Transgressions. Harvard Dataverse. doi: 10.7910/DVN/P7RYPP Google Scholar
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Żemojtel-Piotrowska, Magdalena, Marganski, Alison, Baran, Tomasz, and Piotrowski, Jarosław. 2017. Corruption and Sexual Scandal: The Importance of Politician Gender. Anales de psicología 33(1): 133–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zillmann, Dolf and Knobloch, Silvia. 2001. Emotional Reactions to Narratives about the Fortunes of Personae in the News Theater. Poetics 29(3): 189–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Wolsky Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/P7RYPP
Link
Supplementary material: File

Wolsky Supplementary Materials

Wolsky Supplementary Materials

Download Wolsky Supplementary Materials(File)
File 398.7 KB