IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v59y2015i1p19-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Attacks without Consequence? Candidates, Parties, Groups, and the Changing Face of Negative Advertising

Author

Listed:
  • Conor M. Dowling
  • Amber Wichowsky

Abstract

Prior work finds that voters punish candidates for sponsoring attack ads. What remains unknown is the extent to which a negative ad is more effective if it is sponsored by a party or an independent group instead. We conducted three experiments in which we randomly assigned participants to view a negative ad that was identical except for its sponsor. We find that candidates can benefit from having a party or group “do their dirty work,” but particularly if a group does, and that the most likely explanation for why this is the case is that many voters simply do not connect candidates to the ads sponsored by parties and groups. We also find that in some circumstances, a group‐sponsored attack ad produces less polarization than one sponsored by a party. We conclude by discussing the implications our research has for current debates about the proper role of independent groups in electoral politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Conor M. Dowling & Amber Wichowsky, 2015. "Attacks without Consequence? Candidates, Parties, Groups, and the Changing Face of Negative Advertising," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 19-36, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:1:p:19-36
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12094
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12094
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12094?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jae‐Hee Jung, 2020. "The Mobilizing Effect of Parties' Moral Rhetoric," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 341-355, April.
    2. Schnakenberg, Keith & Schumock, Collin & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Dark Money and Voter Learning," SocArXiv r562d, Center for Open Science.
    3. Nunnari, Salvatore & Galasso, Vincenzo & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2020. "Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning," CEPR Discussion Papers 14312, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Joshua Robison & Randy T. Stevenson & James N. Druckman & Simon Jackman & Jonathan N. Katz & Lynn Vavreck, 2018. "An Audit of Political Behavior Research," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(3), pages 21582440187, August.
    5. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Dark Money and Politician Learning," SocArXiv 3bzex, Center for Open Science.
    6. Davis, Brent, 2017. "“Negative Political Advertising: It’s All in the Timing”," MPRA Paper 79449, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:1:p:19-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.