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Negativity Effect and the Emergence of Ideologies

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  • Enriqueta Aragones

Abstract

"Negativity effect" refers to the psychological phenomenon that people tend to attach greater weight to negative information than to equally extreme and equally likely positive information in a variety of information processing tasks. Numerous studies of impression formation have found that negative information is weighted more heavily than positive information as impressions of others are formed. There is empirical evidence in political science that shows the importance of the negativity effects in the information processing of the voters. This effect can explain the observed decrease of popularity for a president the longer he is in office. We construct a dynamic model of political competition, incorporating the negativity effect in the decision rule of the voters and allowing their preferences to change over time, according to the past performance of the candidates while in office. Our model may explain the emergence of ideologies out of the competition for votes of myopic candidates freely choosing policy positions. This result gives rise to the formation of political parties, as infinitely-lived agents with a certain ideology. We also show that Hotelling's principle of minimum differentation is no longer satisfied. Furthermore, in this model some voters may start out by switching among parties associated with different policies, but find themselves supporting one of the parties from some point on. Thus, the model describes a process by which some voters become identified with a "right" or "left" bloc, while others "swing" between the two parties.

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  • Enriqueta Aragones, 1994. "Negativity Effect and the Emergence of Ideologies," Discussion Papers 1125, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1125
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    5. Ben Lockwood & James Rockey, 2020. "Negative Voters? Electoral Competition with Loss-Aversion," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(632), pages 2619-2648.
    6. Guerdjikova, Ani, 2006. "Portfolio Choice and Asset Prices in an Economy Populated by Case-Based Decision Makers," Working Papers 06-13, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    7. Höhler, Julia & Hildenbrand, Andreas, 2016. "Der Milchpreis In Der Deutschen Presse: Nur „Milchkrisen“ In Der Berichterstattung?," 56th Annual Conference, Bonn, Germany, September 28-30, 2016 244869, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    8. Enriqueta Aragonés, 1994. "Negativity effect in multiparty electoral competition," Economics Working Papers 273, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 1997.
    9. Pascal Gautier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2005. "Political Cycles: the Opposition Advantage," Public Economics 0510019, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2006. "When Inertia Generates Political Cycles," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(31), pages 1-8.
    11. Afanasyev, Dmitriy O. & Fedorova, Elena & Ledyaeva, Svetlana, 2021. "Strength of words: Donald Trump's tweets, sanctions and Russia's ruble," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 253-277.
    12. Kristin Kanthak, 2002. "Top-Down Divergence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 301-323, July.
    13. Raphaël Soubeyran, 2006. "Valence Advantages and Public Goods Consumption: Does a Disadvantaged Candidate Choose an Extremist Position?," Working Papers 2006.84, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    14. David Schmeidler & Itzhak Gilboa, 1996. "Cumulative Utility Consumer Theory," Working Papers 025, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    15. McCluskey, Jill J. & Swinnen, Johan & Vandemoortele, Thijs, 2015. "You get what you want: A note on the economics of bad news," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-5.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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