How partisan social identity shapes evaluations of candidate brand elements on campaign websites

ABSTRACT

Political parties operate as partisan social groups and partisanship biases the way individuals process political information, form political opinions, and evaluate candidates. Partisans demonstrate favoritism when evaluating fellow party members but discriminate against those in the opposing party. However, the bounds of this partisan intergroup bias are undetermined. Using a constructed political website, an experiment tested the extent of the reach of partisan social identity in biasing evaluations on candidate brand attributes. That limit was not ascertained as partisans evaluated an out-party candidate lower than an in-party candidate on every brand element measured, including personal and nonpolitical attributes. Through a tragic frame, partisans expressed great negative affect toward a candidate from the opposing party and transfer it to his political stances, experience, wife, grandson, and even dog. The results reveal that partisan social identities create divides among social and personal issues and exacerbate affective polarization.

KEYWORDS:

• Political campaigns
• political marketing
• political communication
• Social Identity theory
• political websites

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Center for Communication Research, Department of Communication, University of Arkansas.

Notes on contributors

Freddie J. Jennings

Freddie J. Jennings (PhD, University of Missouri) is a teaching assistant professor at the University of Arkansas in the Department of Communication. His research focuses on political communication and persuasion, particularly on how citizens process political information to form attitudes on a wide range of social issues. His research considers the way identities influence elaboration and how social leaders can create more effective messaging to achieve prosocial outcomes. He is the winner of the 2023 Judith S. Trent Award for Early Career Excellence in Political Communication.

Josh C. Bramlett

Josh C. Bramlett (PhD, University of Missouri) is an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama. His research examines strategic political communication processes of persuasion, information, and engagement in contexts such as televised candidate debates, political advertising, political comedy, and digital political communication.

Kaleb Turner

Kaleb Turner (MA, University of Arkansas) is the associate director of communications for the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of Arkansas. His research and applied communication practice focuses on utilizing communication and social capital play in building community resilience.

Benjamin Figueroa

Benjamin Figueroa (BA, University of Arkansas) is a graduate student at the University of Arkansas and the communication manager of a company that offers youth bicycle programming and development for kids in the U.S. His research focuses on critical political communication and his applied communication practice focuses on familial connectedness and community involvement.