The irrelevance of negative campaigns to political trust: Experimental and survey results

Abstract

Previous research on negative political advertising has been confined to voters ‘ evaluations of those ads and their effects on voters ‘ evaluations of candidates. We examine the effects that negative political advertisements have on the general attitude of trust in government. Do mutual accusations by competing candidates in a campaign affect voter attitudes about the political system?

Evidence from both an experiment and a survey suggests that they do not. Experimental subjects exposed to a very negative campaign had similar levels of trust in government as those exposed to a less negative campaign. A statewide survey of registered voters in 1988 showed only a modest correlation between perceived negativity of the presidential campaign and low trust.

Both studies find evidence that trust conditions the relationship between negativity and candidate evaluation. Voters with lower levels of trust in government are more affected by the degree of negativity in the campaign.

Keywords:

• Negative advertising
• political campaigns
• political trust