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Bad for Men, Better for Women: The Impact of Stereotypes During Negative Campaigns

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Abstract

In this paper, we examine whether the impact of negative advertising on citizens’ evaluations of candidates depends on the gender of the candidates. Given common gender stereotypes, we expect negative campaigning aimed at women candidates will affect citizens differently than negative campaigning against male candidates. The results of our study, derived from a survey experiment conducted on a nationwide sample of more than 700 citizens, demonstrate that negative commercials are less effective at depressing evaluations of woman candidates, compared to male candidates. The findings are consistent and strong, across a range of forces that people use to assess competing candidates (i.e., affect and trait evaluations, people’s beliefs about issues, anticipated vote choice). The tight control of the experimental design, including randomization of respondents into different conditions that vary in only one way, demonstrates that the gender of the candidate influences people’s reactions to different types of negative commercials.

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Notes

  1. To be sure, there is an extensive literature examining factors that potentially influence women’s electoral success including gender differences in: (1) political ambition (e.g., Lawless and Fox 2005), (2) fundraising (e.g., Burrell 2005; Fox 2006), (3) recruitment by the major political parties (e.g., Sanbonmatsu 2002a), (4) news media coverage (e.g., Bystrom 2006; Kahn 1996), and (5) voter’s evaluation of political candidates (e.g., Dolan 2004). However, none of this literature has focused on how campaign tactics and messages influence voters’ evaluations of women candidates.

  2. See also Hitchon and Chang (1995) and Wadsworth et al. (1987).

  3. Indeed, scholars have shown that stereotypes can have electoral consequences (Lawless 2004; Sanbonmatsu 2002b). Sanbonmatsu (2002b), employing survey data from Ohio, finds that people employ “baseline gender preferences” when voting. Lawless (2004), using nationwide survey data, finds that in the post-9/11 era, voters are looking for candidates with masculine traits to deal with issues of defense and security.

  4. The details of this experimental design are discussed more extensively in Fridkin and Kenney (2008).

  5. This study is part of a larger survey experiment. In the larger experiment, we distinguish between trait and issue content. For the present study, the trait and issue conditions are combined. In the relevant conditions, one storyboard discusses health care and the other storyboard discusses corruption. These two topics were salient to citizens during the 2006 campaign. According to data collected by Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), when more than 36,000 respondents were asked to mention the most important problem facing the country, “corruption in government” was mentioned most frequently (18%), followed by immigration (17%) and health care (14%). For more information about the CCES study design, see Rivers (n.d.).

  6. In this study, we are only examining “attack” advertisements, not “comparative” advertisements. For a discussion of different types of negative advertisements, see Geer (2006).

  7. See Appendix C for the exact question wording for the candidate questions.

  8. Subjects were asked to evaluate the candidates on topics where women candidates may hold an advantage based on trait (e.g., honesty) or issue (e.g., health care, education) gender stereotypes. Also, we asked respondents to evaluate candidates on topics that may be advantageous to male candidates, based on trait (e.g., leadership) and issue (e.g., economy) gender stereotypes (see Huddy and Terkildsen 1993; Sapiro 1981/1982).

  9. The response rate was 20.2%, based on AAPOR Response Rate 4 (The American Association for Public Opinion Research 2006). The survey response rate is somewhat lower than the average (35%) and median (30%) response rate reported by Groves (2006) in his study of 235 response rates in 35 published research studies.

  10. For example, we found no differences across the conditions in terms of party attachment (F = .724, p < .68), ideological orientation (F = .850, p < .52), political sophistication (F = .791, p < .56), paying attention to the news (F = .871, p < .51), income (F = .602, p < .70), age (F = .53, p < .76), or gender (F = .82, p < .54).

  11. The topics addressed in the storyboards (i.e., corruption and health care in the relevant conditions and the candidate’s divorce records in the irrelevant condition) may resonate differently for male versus female candidates. Although health care and corruption were salient issues in the 2006 campaign (see footnote #5), common gender stereotypes lead people to rate women candidates more positively on these dimensions, compared to male candidates (see, for example, Huddy and Terkildsen 1993). Therefore, attacking a woman on these subjects may be less effective than attacking a man. Similarly, the subject of divorce may be less effective against a woman, compared to a man. Therefore, the topics selected in this study may not be generalizable to all possible campaign topics.

  12. See Appendix A.

  13. The original scores for each question were recoded so each measure ranges from a low or unfavorable score of 1 to a high or favorable score of 4. The scale of the scores was unchanged.

  14. Prior research suggests that female candidates are perceived as more liberal than male politicians, even when the candidates are from the same party (Koch 2000; McDermott 1998; Alexander and Andersen 1993). Thus, in the minds of voters, party, ideology and gender are correlated. In our design, it is possible that subjects assumed that the woman candidate was a Democrat and the male candidate was a Republican. In addition, given our study was conducted in the spring of 2006, and 2006 was a more favorable climate for Democrats, it is possible that the negative attitudes aimed at the male candidate were because subjects assumed he was a Republican. If this were the case, then Democratic respondents would be more likely than Republican respondents to favor the woman candidate. To test for this possibility, we replicate the analysis in Table 3, while controlling for the partisan attachment of the subjects. The findings in Table 2 are unchanged. That is, Democratic and Republican respondents are equally likely to evaluate Susan Burns more favorably than Steve Burns. For example, when assessing the candidate’s “honesty,” Democrats give Steve Burns an average score of 2.68, while Republicans give Steve Burns an average score of 2.67. When evaluating Susan Burns’ “honesty,” Democrats score Susan at 2.95, while Republicans give her a score of 2.92.

  15. We do not vary the gender of the sponsor of the advertisement. A male candidate is always the sponsor. One of the authors of this study conducted a similar experiment examining whether varying the gender of the sponsor influenced individuals’ evaluations of male and female candidates who were attacked with identical content. The results demonstrated that, regardless of the gender of the sponsor, women candidates targeted in negative advertisements received less negative evaluations when compared to male candidates targeted in negative advertisements (Woodall 2005).

  16. We also examine whether the impact of the candidate’s gender varies depending on the gender, political sophistication, and party attachment of the respondents. First, we ran a series of two-way ANOVAs where we examined the impact of the gender of the candidate and the gender of the respondents on evaluations of the candidates for the eight dependent variables. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of gender of the respondent with gender of the candidate: angry (F = 3.4, p < .07), afraid (F = 0.1, n.s.), honesty (F = 0.1, n.s), leadership (F = 0.1, n.s.), economy (F = 1.3, n.s.), health (F = 0.5, n.s.), education (F = .4, n.s.), vote (F = 0.1, n.s.). Second, we ran a series of two-way ANOVAs examining the impact of gender of the candidate and political sophistication of the respondent. We measured political sophistication by asking respondents a series of knowledge questions (see Appendix C). The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of candidate gender and political sophistication: angry (F = 2.8, p < .09), afraid (F = 3.7, p < .06), honesty (F = 2.0 n.s.), leadership (F = 0.1, n.s.), economy (F = 0.1, n.s.), health (F = 0.2, n.s.), education (F = 0.3, n.s), vote (F = 0.2, n.s.). Finally, we ran a series of two-way ANOVAs examining the impact of the gender of the candidate and the party of the respondent on evaluations of the candidates for the eight dependent variables. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of respondent’s party and gender of the candidate: angry (F = 0.2, n.s.), afraid (F = 0.9, n.s.), honesty (F = .0.3, n.s), leadership (F = 0.1, n.s.), economy (F = 3.5, p < .05.), health (F = 5.1, p < .01.), education (F = .8, n.s.), vote (F = 0.9, n.s.). These results suggest that, in general, the gender, political sophistication, and the party of the respondent do not consistently condition the impact of candidate gender on evaluations.

  17. To examine whether different types of respondents react differently to uncivil messages, we ran a series of two-way ANOVAs. First, we examine whether the gender of the respondent interacts with the gender of the candidate to influence evaluation of candidate targeted with an uncivil advertisement. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of gender of the respondent with gender of the candidate for uncivil advertisements: angry (F = 2.9, p < .10), afraid (F = 0.1, n.s.), honesty (F = 0.1, n.s), leadership (F = 0.2, n.s.), economy (F = 0.1, n.s.), health (F = 0.8, n.s.), education (F = 1.4, p < .05), vote (F = 0.1, n.s.). Second, we examine whether the sophistication of the respondent interacts with the gender of the candidate to influence evaluation of candidate targeted with an uncivil advertisement. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of sophistication of the respondent with gender of the candidate for uncivil advertisements: angry (F = 1.4, n.s.), afraid (F = 5.3, p < .05), honesty (F = 1.6, n.s.), leadership (F = 0.1, n.s.), economy (F = 0.6, n.s.), health (F = 0.4, n.s.), education (F = 1.1, p < .05), vote (F = 0.1, n.s.). Third, we examine whether the party of the respondent interacts with the gender of the candidate to influence evaluation of candidates targeted with an uncivil advertisement. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of party of the respondent with gender of the candidate for uncivil advertisements: angry (F = 0.8, n.s.), afraid (F = 0.6, p < n.s.), honesty (F = 0.8, n.s.), leadership (F = 0.4, n.s.), economy (F = 1.7, n.s.), health (F = 0.8, n.s.), education (F = 0.5, n.s.), vote (F = 0.2, n.s.). These results suggest that, in general, gender, political sophistication and the party of the respondent do not consistently condition the impact of candidate gender on evaluations of candidates targeted in uncivil commercials.

  18. To examine whether different types of respondents react differently to irrelevant messages, we ran a series of two-way ANOVAs. First, we examine whether the gender of the respondent interacts with the gender of the candidate to influence evaluation of candidate targeted with an irrelevant advertisement. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of gender of the respondent with gender of the candidate for irrelevant advertisements: angry (F = 3.9, p < .10), afraid (F = 0.6, n.s.), honesty (F = 0.4, n.s), leadership (F = 4.2, p < .05), economy (F = 0.1, n.s.), health (F = 0.9, n.s.), education (F = 1.4, n.s.), vote (F = 0.6, n.s.). Second, we examine whether the sophistication of the respondent interacts with the gender of the candidate to influence evaluation of candidate targeted with an irrelevant advertisement. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of sophistication of the respondent with gender of the candidate for irrelevant advertisements: angry (F = 0.1, n.s.), afraid (F = 0.1, n.s.), honesty (F = 1.5, n.s), leadership (F = 0.99, n.s.), economy (F = 0.1, n.s.), health (F = 0.8, n.s.), education (F = 0.1, n.s.), vote (F = 1.0, n.s.). Third, we examine whether the party of the respondent interacts with the gender of the candidate to influence evaluation of candidates targeted with an irrelevant advertisement. The following are the F-statistics for the interaction of party of the respondent with gender of the candidate for uncivil advertisements: angry (F = 1.3, n.s.), afraid (F = 0.9, p < n.s.), honesty (F = 0.9, n.s), leadership (F = 0.9, n.s.), economy (F = 4.2, p < .05.), health (F = 1.7, n.s.), education (F = 1.2, n.s.), vote (F = 1.3, n.s.). These results suggest that, in general, gender, political sophistication and the party of the respondent do not consistently condition the impact of candidate gender on evaluations of candidates targeted in irrelevant commercials.

  19. The overall evaluation score ranges from 8 to 30, with a mean of 19.4 and a standard deviation of 5.0.

  20. The relevant negative advertisement leads to significantly more negative evaluations of Steve Burns, compared to the irrelevant negative advertisement (F = 18.9, p < .01). The uncivil negative advertisement leads to significantly more negative evaluations of Steve Burns, compared to the civil negative advertisement (F = 9.1, p < .01).

  21. The relevant negative advertisement leads to significantly more negative evaluations of Susan Burns, compared to the irrelevant advertisement (F = 65.1, p < .01).

  22. The uncivil negative advertisement does not lead to significantly more negative evaluations of Steve Burns, compared to the civil negative advertisement (F = 0.3, p = n.s.).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Arizona State University, CLAS, 6752 Coor Building, Tempe, AZ, 85287-3902, USA

    Kim L. Fridkin

  2. Department of Political Science, Arizona State University, CLAS, 6748 Coor Building, Tempe, AZ, 85287-3902, USA

    Patrick J. Kenney

  3. Department of Political Science, Arizona State University, CLAS, 6th floor Coor Building, Tempe, AZ, 85287-3902, USA

    Gina Serignese Woodall

Authors
  1. Kim L. Fridkin
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  2. Patrick J. Kenney
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  3. Gina Serignese Woodall
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kim L. Fridkin.

Appendices

Appendix A. Experimental Conditions in Survey Experiment

 

 

Gender

Civility

Relevance

1.

Steve Burns

Civil

Relevant

2.

Susan Burns

Civil

Relevant

3.

Steve Burns

Uncivil

Relevant

4.

Susan Burns

Uncivil

Relevant

5.

Steve Burns

Civil

Irrelevant

6.

Susan Burns

Civil

Irrelevant

7.

Steve Burns

Uncivil

Irrelevant

8.

Susan Burns

Uncivil

Irrelevant

Appendix B. Content of Storyboards

Storyboard 1

Civil and Relevant (Trait)

Lapses of ethical judgment surround Steve Burns’ tenure in office, like the ethical questions surrounding his business practices. When Steve Burns was on the audit committee of Extel, the Securities and Exchange Commission found the company guilty of dishonest accounting, deceiving investors, and recording sales that never occurred. Just like Enron. Now questions about Steve Burns’ ethics in office have prompted the Attorney General to investigate reports of improper payments from a state contractor to a Burns appointee. And, recent news accounts report a conflict of interest surrounding a million-dollar state contract awarded to Steve Burns’ friends—without competitive bidding. Ethical questions seem to follow Steve Burns wherever he goes.

Storyboard 2

Uncivil and Relevant (Trait)

“Corrupt” and “immoral” are words that characterize Steve Burns’ business practices. When Burns was on the audit committee of Extel, the Securities and Exchange Commission found the company guilty of dishonest accounting and lying to investors. He’s no better than the people who ran Enron. Steve Burns deserves to be in jail, not in the U.S. Senate. Now questions about Burns’ ethics in office have prompted the Attorney General to investigate a million-dollar state contract awarded to his friends—without competitive bidding. Allegations of corruption follow Steve Burns wherever he goes. Steve Burns cares more about lining his friends’ pockets than caring for the people of this state.

Storyboard 3

Civil and Relevant (Issue)

When you buy in bulk you save money—it’s the same idea with health insurance. We need to create buying pools so individuals can join together to purchase health insurance. It’s one way to lower premiums and allow more families to afford coverage. Health care costs have skyrocketed in recent years and millions of people, especially the elderly, can’t afford the medication they desperately need. We are facing a health care crisis, yet Steve Burns has offered no plan to deal with out of control health care costs. We need someone with ideas; we need someone with a plan to deal with this important issue. That someone is not Steve Burns.

Storyboard 4

Uncivil and Relevant (Issue)

When you buy in bulk you save money—it’s the same idea with health insurance. We need to create buying pools so individuals can join together to purchase health insurance. It’s one way to lower premiums and allow more families to afford coverage. Steve Burns has not endorsed nor rejected this plan. In fact, Steve Burns has no ideas and no plans to deal with the skyrocketing costs of health care. Does Steve Burns even know there is a problem? Is he clueless? Does Steve Burns even care that millions of people, especially the elderly, can’t afford medication to ease their pain or control their illness? Or is Steve Burns just heartless?

Storyboard 5

Civil and Irrelevant

In every political campaign, there is a moment of truth. For Steve Burns, that moment is now. The Star Ledger is calling on the Senate candidate to come clean with voters by opening his divorce records. The judge who presided over Steve Burns’ divorce said these materials will prove to be damaging to Steve Burns because the material is likely to be “inflammatory, inappropriate, and embarrassing.” For Steve Burns, it is the moment of truth. Does Steve Burns trust voters with the truth or does Steve Burns want to hide the truth. After all, if Steve Burns won’t trust us with the truth, why should we trust him?

Storyboard 6

Uncivil and Irrelevant

In every political campaign, there is a moment of truth. For Steve Burns, that moment is now. The Star Ledger is calling on the Senate candidate to come clean with voters by opening his messy and compromising divorce records. Steve Burns’ refusals are inexcusable and irresponsible. The judge who presided over Steve Burns’ divorce said these materials will prove to be damaging to Steve Burns because the material is likely to be “inflammatory, inappropriate, and embarrassing.” For Steve Burns, it is the moment of truth. Steve Burns won’t come clean about his divorce because he is hiding the truth. Steve Burns is a liar. Steve Burns can’t be trusted.

Note

To alter the gender of the candidate in each storyboard, we simply changed the name of the candidate from Steve to Susan and made appropriate changes to the pronouns (e.g., he/she). The rest of the storyboard remained unchanged.

For the analysis in this paper, subjects exposed to Storyboard 1 and Storyboard 2 are combined (Condition 1–2 in Table 1) and subjects exposed to Storyboard 3 and Storyboard 4 are combined (Condition 3–4 in Table 2). Because we find no differences in evaluations of Steve and Susan Burns when we distinguish between relevant issue and trait storyboards, we combine these subjects for ease of presentation.

Appendix C. Questionnaire Appendix

I would like to ask you a series of questions about the candidate, Steve/Susan Burns, the candidate featured in this advertisement. You may have developed some mental image or picture of Steve/Susan Burns, as you listened to the advertisement. There may be no particular reason for this image that you can think of, it may have just occurred to you as you listened to the advertisement.

Please try to answer each question, even though you may not know very much about Steve/Susan Burns

  • What is the likelihood that you would vote for Steve/Susan Burns for U.S. Senate if you lived in his/her state?

  1. 1.

    Very likely

  2. 2.

    Somewhat likely

  3. 3.

    Somewhat unlikely

  4. 4.

    Very unlikely

  5. 5.

    Don’t know/Refused

  • Think about Steve/Susan Burns. Does Steve/Susan Burns make you feel ANGRY?

  1. 1.

    Very angry

  2. 2.

    Somewhat angry

  3. 3.

    Not angry at all

  4. 4.

    Don’t know/Refused

  • Does Steve/Susan Burns make you feel AFRAID?

  1. 1.

    Very afraid

  2. 2.

    Somewhat afraid

  3. 3.

    Not afraid at all

  4. 4.

    Don’t know/refused

  • Think about Steve/Susan Burns. In your opinion, does the phrase “dishonest” describe Steve/Susan Burns extremely well, quite well, not too well or not well at all?

  1. 1.

    Extremely well

  2. 2.

    Quite well

  3. 3.

    Not too well

  4. 4.

    Not well at all

  5. 5.

    Don’t know/Refused

  • Think about Steve/Susan Burns. In your opinion, does the phrase “provides strong leadership” describe Steve/Susan Burns extremely well, quite well, not too well or not well at all?

  1. 1.

    Extremely well

  2. 2.

    Quite well

  3. 3.

    Not too well

  4. 4.

    Not well at all

  5. 5.

    Don’t know/Refused

  • What is your best guess about Steve/Susan Burns’ competence in dealing with economic issues?

  1. 1.

    Competent

  2. 2.

    Somewhat competent

  3. 3.

    Somewhat incompetent

  4. 4.

    Incompetent

  5. 5.

    Don’t know

  • What is your best guess about Steve/Susan Burns’ competence in dealing with health care issues?

  1. 1.

    Competent

  2. 2.

    Somewhat competent

  3. 3.

    Somewhat incompetent

  4. 4.

    Incompetent

  5. 5.

    Don’t know

  • What is your best guess about Steve/Susan Burns’ competence in dealing with education issues?

  1. 1.

    Competent

  2. 2.

    Somewhat competent

  3. 3.

    Somewhat incompetent

  4. 4.

    Incompetent

  5. 5.

    Don’t know

Index of Political Sophistication

  • Whose responsibility is it to determine if a law is constitutional or not?

  1. 1.

    The President

  2. 2.

    The U.S. Supreme Court

  3. 3.

    The U.S. Congress

  4. 5.

    Don’t know

  • What job or political office is now held by Dennis Hastert?

  1. 1.

    Speaker of the U.S. House

  2. 2.

    Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate

  3. 3.

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice

  4. 5.

    Don’t know

  • How many justices serve on the U.S. Supreme Court?

  1. 1.

    12

  2. 2.

    9

  3. 3.

    6

  4. 4.

    10

  5. 5.

    Don’t know

  • How long is a U.S. Senate term?

  1. 1.

    2 years

  2. 2.

    4 years

  3. 3.

    6 years

  4. 5.

    Don’t know

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Fridkin, K.L., Kenney, P.J. & Woodall, G.S. Bad for Men, Better for Women: The Impact of Stereotypes During Negative Campaigns. Polit Behav 31, 53–77 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-008-9065-x

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