Sex differences in political communication during presidential campaigns

This study examines and tests sex differences in interpersonal political communication during a period of one week prior to the 1988 presidential election. The data for the study were collected from 567 respondents selected by a systematic random sampling procedure among adult residents in a medium sized city in New York. The results demonstrated that both men and women participated in political discussion quite actively, much more frequently than previous studies have reported. Men still talked about the campaign with significantly more people than women. Women were much more likely than men to name their spouses as their main political discussants, while men were more likely to mention friends and co‐workers. There was a very high congruency between people's perception of their discussants’ voting choices, their own intention and their actual vote. This tendency was especially strong among women. This finding suggests that people talk mainly with people in social groups who agree with them, indicating the power of social environment and of homophily in political communication.

Key concepts:

• Political communication
• interpersonal communication
• presidential campaigns
• men
• women
• vote