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Abstract
In the field of political communication, the effects of negative propaganda strategies have been long studied. In the current work, I investigated the perceived and actual persuasiveness of an unexplored positive propaganda strategy, i.e., addressing a flattery to the rival in a political speech. In a 2 × 2 full-factorial design experiment, a fictitious candidate (a man or a woman) flattered, or did not flatter, an opponent in a political speech. Results showed that when the candidate flattered a rival s/he influenced the likelihood of being voted through source trustworthiness evaluation, irrespective of the candidate’s gender. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Acknowledgment
I wish to express my gratitude to Francesca Pirani for collecting the data of Study 1, and to Michele Roccato for comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript .The author would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestion.