Scandals such as racially insensitive costuming do not always ruin political ambitions. Instead, partisan supporters’ voting intentions can remain strong when they rely upon simplistic impressions. In this experiment, U.S. adults presented with a (fictitious) political candidate with similar (or different) sociopolitical positions were confronted with a news story about the candidate's racially insensitive Halloween costume during his college years. Participants wrote their impressions of the candidate with similar sociopolitical positions in a positive tone and with lower integrative complexity (as indexed by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count; LIWC). The effect of candidate's similar sociopolitical position on voting intentions was partially mediated by less integratively complex impressions. Thus, a noncomplex positive impression helped partisans retain their supportive intentions. Findings are considered in light of contemporary transmission of political news and opinions through social media.
AbeJ. A. (2011). Changes in Alan Greenspan’s language use across the economic cycle: A text analysis of his testimonies and speeches. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 30(2), 212–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X10397152
2.
BrundidgeJ.ReidS. A.ChoiS.MuddimanA. (2014). The “deliberative digital divide:” Opinion leadership and integrative complexity in the U.S. Political blogosphere. Political Psychology, 35(6), 741–755. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12201
3.
ChaikenS.Giner-SorollaR.ChenS. (1996). Beyond accuracy: Defense and impression motives in heuristic and systematic information processing. In GollwitzerP. M.BarghJ. A. (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 553–578). Guilford.
4.
ChungC. K.PennebakerJ. W. (2007). The psychological functions of words. In FiedlerK. (Ed.), Social communication (pp. 343–359). NY: Psychology Press.
5.
EffronD. A. (2022). The moral repetition effect: Bad deeds seem less unethical when repeatedly encountered. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(10), 2562–2585. https://doi.org/http:/doi.org/10.1037/xge0001214
6.
FaulF.ErdfelderE.LangA.-G.BuchnerA. (2007). G*power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146
7.
FischleM. (2000). Mass response to the Lewinsky scandal: Motivated reasoning or Bayesian updating?Political Psychology, 21(1), 135–159. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00181
FunckA. S.McCabeK. T. (2022). Partisanship, information, and the conditional effects of scandal on voting decisions. Political Behavior, 44, 1389–1409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09670-x
10.
GalakJ.CritcherC. R. (2023). Who sees which political falsehoods as more acceptable and why: A new look at in-group loyalty and trustworthiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(3), 593–619. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000264
11.
GradyR. H.DittoP. H.LoftusE. F. (2021). Nevertheless, partisanship persisted: Fake news warnings help briefly, but bias returns with time. Cognitive Research, 6(52), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00315-z
12.
HayesA. F. (2023). PROCESS version 4.3.1 afhayes.com.
13.
JostJ. T.GlaserJ.KruglanskiA. W.SullowayF. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339–375. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339
14.
KlaukeF.Müller-FrommeyerL. C.KauffeldS. (2020). Writing about the silence: Identifying the language of ostracism. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(5-6), 751–763. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x19884599
15.
LangdonJ. A.HelgasonB. A.QiuJ.EffronD. A. (2024). “It’s not literally true, but you get the gist:” how nuanced understandings of truth encourage people to condone and spread misinformation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 57, 101788. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101788
16.
LeeA. H.-Y.HarellA.StephensonL. B.RubensonD.LoewenP. J. (2023). Motivated to forgive? Partisan scandals and party supporters. Political Psychology, 44(4), 729–747. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12882
17.
MaassA.SalviD.ArcuriL.SeminG. R. (1989). Language use in intergroup contexts: The linguistic intergroup bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 98–993. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.981
18.
MeyerhoffJ.LiuT.StamatisC. A.LiuT.WangH.MengY.CurtisB.KarrC. J.ShermanG.UngarL. H.MohrD. C. (2023). Analyzing text message linguistic features: Do people with depression communicate differently with their close and non-close contacts. Behavior Research and Therapy, 166, 104342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104342
19.
MullenB.JohnsonC. (1993). Cognitive representation in ethnophaulisms as a function of group size: The phenomenology of being in a group. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(3), 296–304. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167293193006
PennebakerJ. W.BoydR. L.JordanK.BlackburnK. (2015). The development and psychometric properties of LIWC2015. TX: University of Texas at Austin. https://doi.org/10.15781/T29G6Z
22.
PettigrewT. F. (1979). The ultimate attribution error: Extending allport’s cognitive analysis of prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 5(4), 461–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616727900500407
RuscherJ. B.FiskeS. T.SchnakeS. B. (2000). The motivated tactician’s juggling act: Compatible versus incompatible impression goals. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(2), 241–256. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466600164453
26.
RuscherJ. B.SantuzziA. M.HammerE. Y. (2003). Shared impression formation in the cognitively interdependent dyad. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42(3), 411–425. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466603322438233
27.
RustingC. L.Nolen-HoeksemaS. (1998). Regulating responses to anger: Effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 790–803. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.790
28.
SawaokaT.MoninB. (2018). The paradox of viral outrage. Psychological Science, 29(10), 1665–1678. https://10.1177/0956797618780658
SchwalbeM. C.JoseffK.WoolleyS.CohenG. L. (2024). When politics trumps truth: Political concordance versus veracity as a determinant of believing, sharing, and recalling the news. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(10), 2524–2551. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001650
31.
ScottW. A.OsgoodD. W.PetersonC. (1979). Cognitive structure: Theory and measurement of individual differences. Winston.
32.
ShroutP. E.BolgerN. (2002). Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: New procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods, 7(4), 422–445. https://doi.org/10.1037//1082-898X.7.4.422
TajfelH.TurnerJ. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In WorchelS.AustinW. (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Nelson-Hall.
35.
TetlockP. E. (1981). Personality and isolationism: Content analysis of senatorial speeches. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(4), 737–743. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.41.4.737
36.
Van HielA.OnraetE.De PauwS. (2010). The relationship between social-cultural attitudes and behavioral measures of cognitive style: A meta-analytic integration of studies. Journal of Personality, 78(6), 1765–1769. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00669.x
