Sexual misconduct in politics: how intergroup biases affect judgments of a scandalized politician and partisan ambivalence

ABSTRACT

Guided by social identity theory, this study sought to understand how ingroup biases relating to political identity moderates the relationship between individuals’ judgments of a politician’s credibility and their perceived partisan ambivalence when they are exposed to news coverage about a politician who addresses their sexual misconduct allegations. A total of 198 participants were randomly assigned in a 2 by 2 between-subjects posttest-only factorial design. Results indicated that individuals who viewed the news story about a politician in their ingroup were more likely to perceive them as credible, and express higher levels of partisan ambivalence than those who viewed the story about an outgroup politician. In addition, the moderation effects suggest that despite problematic behaviors, politicians still receive significant support from their ingroup members, which has the potential to influence political outcomes in reality. Implications of the findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Ingroup bias
• political sex scandal
• credibility
• partisan ambivalence
• experiment

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The authors are willing to share their data, analytics methods, and study materials with other researchers. The material will be available upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jian Shi

Jian Shi (Ph.D.) is a recent graduate from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.

Adriana S. Mucedola

Adriana S. Mucedola (Ph.D.) is an Instructor of Communications at Finger Lakes Community College.

Tong Lin

Tong Lin is a doctoral student at the Department of Communications, University of Maryland.

Kandice N. Green

Kandice N. Green is a doctoral candidate at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.