Abstract
Before the election, 112 voters rated Nixon and McGovern on a 7-point attraction scale and evaluated the two men's chances of winning. After the election, the same voters were asked to re-rate the candidates. It was found that Ss expressed a greater liking for the candidate they were going to vote for if they thought he had relatively less chances of winning (the “underdog effect”). Voters also overestimated their candidate's chances of winning. Contrary to the hypothesis, those persons who had voted for McGovern did not find him less attractive after the election. Possibly because he was held responsible for his failure, his voters did not need to derogate him in order to maintain the concept of a just world.
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