When political candidates “go positive”: the effects of flattering the rival in political communication

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for measures and intercorrelations.

	M (SD)	Correlations
		2	3	4	5
1. Perceived source competence	4.95 (.92)	.55***	−.41***	.36***	.55***
2. Perceived source trustworthiness	4.11 (1.05)		−.51***	.54***	.72***
3. Suspicion of ulterior motive	3.36 (1.63)			−.28*	−.31*
4. Likelihood of voting for that candidate	3.82 (1.30)				.68***
5. Perceived persuasiveness	3.68 (1.20)

* p < .05 level;

*** p < .001.

Table 2. Effects of flattery in a political speech on impressions of the source, suspicion of ulterior motive, and voting intention as a function of the experimental conditions (means; standard deviations given in parenthesis).

	Male candidate		Female candidate
	Opponent flattery	No flattery (control)	Opponent flattery	No flattery (control)
Perceived source competence	4.97 (.92)	4.68 (.85)	5.20 (.98)	4.88 (.91)
Perceived source trustworthiness	4.16 (.85)	3.40 (1.10)	4.71 (.88)	4.07 (1.00)
Suspicion of ulterior motive	3.61 (1.60)	3.67 (2.01)	2.98 (1.36)	3.26 (1.56)
Likelihood of voting for the source	3.65 (1.16)	3.40 (1.73)	4.34 (1.06)	3.80 (1.08)
Perceived persuasiveness	3.80 (1.31)	3.61 (1.33)	4.24 (1.21)	3.40 (1.21)