Political Marketing: Structural Models of Advertising Influence and Voter Behavior

Abstract

Research on the influence of political advertising, the role of media, and the roles of affect and the cognitive organization of political reality in controlling voter behavior often overlooks a fundamental regularity in human behavior. Humans perceive political events in causal relationships. The image of a politician is related to people's feelings toward him or her, and the two influence each other during the political advertising experience. The resulting mutual causal relationship determines a voter's choice behavior, the perception of the function of the media in political campaigns, and the affect toward a politician's voting record. Such a causal analysis allows a test of two approaches by which voters organize political reality: the realist and constructivist. It also can be used for more detailed cross-cultural comparisons. This study analyzes these issues based on the sequential model of the influence of advertising on voting behaviors and the structural model of voter's choice behavior in Poland and the United States.

KEYWORDS:

• constructivist approach
• Polish voting behavior
• realist approach
• sequential model of advertising influence on voting behavior
• structural model of voting behavior
• U.S. voting behavior

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Christine Williams for detailed, constructive comments that substantially improved the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrzej Falkowski

Andrzej Falkowski is a Professor of Psychology and Marketing, and head of the Department of Marketing Psychology at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan. His publications include numerous articles in consumer behavior, political marketing, and cognitive psychology journals, as well as chapters and books. He is co-author of A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior (Haworth Press, 2007) and Political Marketing: Theoretical and Strategic Foundations (M.E. Sharpe, 2011). He is advisory editor of the Handbook of Political Marketing, and editorial board member of the Journal of Political Marketing.

Wojciech Cwalina

Wojciech Cwalina is Professor in the Department of Marketing Psychology at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland. His research interests include political marketing, social psychology, and media psychology. He is a member of the editorial board for Psychologia Społeczna (Social Psychology) and the Journal of Political Marketing. He is the author of Television Political Advertising (TN KUL, Poland, 2000), co-author of Political Marketing: Psychological Perspective (GWP, Poland, 2005), A Cross-Cultural Theory of Voter Behavior (Haworth Press, 2007), Political Marketing: Theoretical and Strategic Foundations (M.E. Sharpe, 2011), and numerous articles (e.g., in Media Psychology; Journal of Political Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journalism Studies) and book chapters.