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Variability in Citizens' Reactions to Different Types of Negative CampaignsAuthor(s): Kim L. Fridkin and Patrick J. KenneySource: American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 2 (April • 2011), pp. 307-325Published by: Midwest Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23025053 .

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Variability in Citizens' Reactions toDifferent Types of Negative Campaigns

Kim L. Fridkin Arizona State UniversityPatrick J.

KenneyArizona State

University

Do negative advertisements lower voters' evaluations of the targeted candidate? We theorize that there is much to be gained

by examining the variance in the content and tone of negative campaign messages and the variance in voters' sensitivityto negative political rhetoric. We employ data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to investigate the

impact of negative campaigning in U.S. Senate campaigns. We sampled 1,045 respondents in 21 of the 28 U.S. Senate races

featuring a majority party incumbent and challenger. In addition to the survey data, we collected contextual data regardingthe political advertisements aired during the campaigns and the news coverage of these campaigns in state newspapers. The

evidence suggests that the impact of negative information is multifaceted, and under some circumstances, substantial. We

find that uncivil and relevant negative messages are the most powerful, especially for people with less tolerance for negative

political rhetoric.

Is

negative campaigning effective? Do negative advertisements lower evaluations of the targeted candidate? The preponderance of the evidence, after 25

years of scholarship, suggests that negative campaigninghas limited effects on citizens' impressions of candidates

(e.g., Lau et al. 1999; Lau, Sigelman, and Rovner 2007). Inthe most comprehensive and up-to-date review of the lit

erature, Lau, Sigelman, and Rovner conclude, The find

ings reported in the research literature do not bear out

the proposition that attacking is an effective way to bolster one's own image relative to that of one's opponent

(2007, 118).Such findings of the ineffectiveness of negative cam

paigning are not surprising given the plethora of evidence

suggesting that many Americans do not pay close attention to political messages, negative or otherwise (e.g.,

Zaller 1992). And, when people do pay attention to cam

paign rhetoric, they are not easily persuaded (e.g., Kinder

2003). Furthermore, the ineffectiveness of negative cam

paigning is entirely consistent with the cottage industry

of scholarship demonstrating that the outcomes of presidential elections can be predicted before the onset ofthe fall campaign.1 All told, the conclusion that negativecampaigning is ineffective is consistent with theories andevidence emanating from the voting and public opinionliterature.

So, why do we feel uncomfortable concluding that

negative advertisements are ineffective? It seems unrea

sonable that the millions of dollars spent on negative

campaign messages are for naught. Negative messages are

pervasive in presidential and competitive congressionaland senatorial elections (Franz et al. 2008; Geer 2006;Jacobson 2009). In the final days of competitive cam

paigns, especially in the battleground states during presidential elections, the campaign messages are often exclu

sively negative (Teinowitz 2008).Given the preponderance of negative advertisements

produced and disseminated by the candidates and the

political parties on television, on the radio, and online,the information costs for obtaining negative messages

Kim L. Fridkin is Professor of Government, Politics, and Global Studies, Arizona State University, Coor Hall, 6th Floor, P.O. Box 873902,

Tempe, AZ 85287-3902 ([email protected]). Patrick J. Kenney is Professor and Director in the School of Politics and Global Studies,Arizona State University, Coor Hall, 6th Floor, P.O. Box 873902, Tempe, AZ 85287-3902 ([email protected]).

This article was supported by a grant from the Institute of Social Science Research at Arizona State University. We would like to thank

Pat Crittenden for her editorial assistance and Jill Carle for her research assistance. An online appendix with supplementary material for

this article is available at http://www.ajps.org/. The data and the syntax files used in this article will be available by January 10, 2012, at

http://pgs.clas.asu.edu/research.

'The most recent round of predictions appeared in PS: Political Science and Politics, October 2008. Ten articles, authored by 15 researchers,

appeared in a symposium entitled Forecasting the 2008 National Elections.

American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 2, April 2011, Pp. 307-325

©2011, Midwest Political Science Association DOI: 10.1111/j.l540-5907.2010.00494.x

307







KIM L. FRIDKIN AND PATRICK J. KENNEY

for voters is approaching zero. Since negative messagesare abundant during the final weeks of many presidential and subpresidential campaigns, we expect that suchsaturation coverage would influence attitudes toward the

candidates.Consistent with this expectation, some researchers

have found that negative commercials do produce critical

impressions of targeted candidates (e.g., Ansolabehereand Iyengar 1997; Fridkin and Kenney 2004; Roddy andGarramone 1988).2 Moreover, political consultants and

political candidates consider negative advertisements tobe a valuable tool in campaigns (Abbe et al. 2001; Thurberand Nelson 2000).

Therefore, we believe that additional exploration intohow negative advertising affects citizens' attitudes aboutcandidates is worthwhile. Specifically, we believe thatscholars have not fully investigated the variance in thecontent and tone of negative messages and the variance

in citizens' receptivity and tolerance of negative politicalrhetoric. We hypothesize that the variability in these dimensions is related to how negative information shapesvoters' attitudes toward candidates.

Theory and ExpectationsThe Message

We know that negative information is likely to attract people's attention, even when individuals are distracted by thedemands associated with daily life (Fiske 1980). This negativity bias in impression formation is well established

(e.g., Fiske 1980; Taylor 1981). The reason that peopleattend readily to negative information is that the contentof negative messages is filled with clues about events orsituations that people should avoid (e.g., Kahneman and

Tversky 1979; Lau 1982; McGrawand Steenbergen 1997).In addition to the negativity of messages, people pay

more attention to messages that they perceive as relevant

to their daily lives. In social psychology, for example, a

variety of models of persuasion indicate that the relevanceof the message is a prerequisite for persuasion (McGuire1964, 1989; Petty and Cacioppo 1986). McGuire (1989),in his classic model of persuasion, argues that a messageis persuasive only if people attend to and comprehendthe message. And, when deciding which messages to payattention to, people use the relevance of the message as

a decision rule, concentrating on the messages that are

relevant and ignoring those that are irrelevant.3

Although the social psychological literature is basedon messages that are personally relevant to individuals,we believe that the same logic extends to relevance for

governing in the political realm. We define relevanceas discussions about issues, personal traits, or other topics that people consider pertinent for an electoral cam

paign.4 We reason that voters find some negative mes

sages far more relevant (e.g., candidates' voting records)than others (e.g., candidates' drug use in college). A recent survey experiment examined subjects' impressionsof fictitious candidates and the relevance of several commercials (Fridkin and Kenney 2008). Findings from this

study demonstrated that subjects readily rated certaincommercials as more relevant to governing than others.

And, the same data indicated that relevant negative mes

sages (e.g., a message about the candidate's health careproposal) are more effective in shaping attitudes thanirrelevant negative messages (e.g., a message about thecandidate's divorce).5

Negative commercials, in addition to varying in content, also vary dramatically in tone. Some negative mes

sages are delivered in an uncivil and strident manner,while other negative commercials embrace a more mea

sured and courteous tone (Geer 2006). We expect that

negative messages differing in their civility will vary intheir impact on citizens' evaluations of candidates. Our

expectations rest on research demonstrating that peopleembrace norms that guide their interactions with otherindividuals. These norms about civil discourse extendto public discourse as well, with people expecting a certain level of civility from political actors, including candidates running for office (Guttman 1993; Mutz and Reeves2005). In fact, several studies have yielded consistent find

ings demonstrating that not only do citizens make predictable distinctions between civil and uncivil messages,

2In contrast, other scholars have found that negative advertisementsare ineffective in lowering evaluations of the targeted candidateor that negative advertisements produce modest or inconsistent

effects. See, for example, Basil, Schooler, and Reeves (1991), Lauand Pomper (2004), and Thorson, Christ, and Caywood (1991).

3Petty and Cacioppo (1986) also show that the relevance of the

message significantly influences people's willingness to process amessage (see also O'Keefe 2002; Perloff 2003).

4We theorize that issues and traits can be relevant or irrelevantfor governing. For example, an irrelevant issue may be an issueno longer on the public agenda (e.g., a candidate's opposition to awar that has been over for several years). Similarly, an example of arelevant trait may be the candidate's prior political experience or thecandidate's questionable integrity, as evidenced by the acceptanceof gifts by a wealthy donor.

5To be sure, scholars have explored the role of the content of messages by distinguishing between negative messages focusing on thecandidate's personality and negative messages focusing on a candidate's policy positions (e.g., Brooks and Geer 2007; Geer 2006, Lau

and Pomper 2004; Thorson, Christ, and Caywood 1991). However,the results of these studies are inconclusive.







NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

but also uncivil messages consistently produce more neg

ative views of politicians and the political process (e.g.,Brooks and Geer 2007; Fridkin and Kenney 2008; Mutzand Reeves 2005).

Given the importance of civility as a norm in public discourse, how might people respond to political dis

course violating these established norms? According to research focused on product advertising, an advertisementis a social object and is evaluated by common social norms

(Dahl, Frankenberger, and Manchanda 2003). When thecontent or tone of an advertisement breaches norms for

decency, good taste, and personal moral standards, theadvertisement causes surprise, thereby attracting atten

tion to the novel stimulus (Meyer et al. 1991).In the political realm, a campaign advertisement vi

olating norms of civility is likely to be noticed. And,consistent with theoretical and empirical research on

information-processing models, advertisements that violate the norms of civility are viewed as shocking, therebyfacilitating message comprehension and enhancing mes

sage retention (e.g., McGuire 1976).In exploring the impact of negative messages, it is

essential to consider the civility of those messages in con

junction with their relevance.6 In particular, in predictinghow negative messages will influence evaluations of the

candidates, the relevance of the message is paramount.Prospective voters are only interested in hearing criticismsand critiques that provide information directly relevant

to how a candidate will perform in office. In contrast,we expect that negative messages focusing on topics irrelevant to governing will not influence evaluations of a

targeted candidate.

Although all relevant messages should influence vot

ers' assessments of a targeted candidate, we expect that

the civility of the message will alter its impact. An uncivil message—on a relevant topic—will heighten people's attention to the message and will more likely beremembered (Lau 1982; Mutz and Reeves 2005). There

fore, relevant and uncivil messages should produce the

most powerful negative images of a targetedcandidate.

Relevant and civil messages should produce more moderate negative impressions. And, irrelevant messages—

whether they are civil or uncivil—should not influence

impressions of a targeted candidate.

The Receiver

Just as negative messages vary in terms of their relevanceand civility, we think that citizens' tolerance of negativemessages varies. In particular, we expect that certain peo

ple may be more tolerant of messages delivered in a strident fashion or focused on topics only tangentially relatedto governing. That is, for some people, anything goeswhen it comes to negative campaigning. These peoplebelieve that candidates should be free to attack their opponents in whatever way they choose. For other people,

certain types of negative messages cross the line and insult their sensibilities regarding public decency and fairness.

We contend that people's predispositions regardingthe appropriate nature of political discourse will determine their receptivity to certain types of negative mes

sages delivered during campaigns. For people who havea high tolerance for negative messages (i.e., people whothink any type of attack advertising is appropriate), therelevance and civility of the message will be less influ

ential. In contrast, citizens who have a low tolerance forcertain types of negative political messages will be moreaffected by the (ir)relevance and (in)civility of negativemessages.

We draw an analogy for illustrative purposes betweentolerance toward political messages and tolerance of physiological conditions. In the medical field, for example, we

know that people who have a low tolerance for pain aremore likely to feel pain when they are hurt physically. So,even if two people in a laboratory setting are exposed tothe same amount of pain (e.g., a certain level of pressure

on a subject's finger), the person with a lower tolerance

for pain will report a higher level of discomfort (see, for

example, Ellermeier and Westphal 1995). Similarly, we

expect that people with a low tolerance for certain typesof negative messages are more sensitive and will be more

influenced by such messages. Therefore, the impact ofthese messages will be greater.

We are not the first to hypothesize that people differ

in their sensitivity to negative stimuli. For example, Ulbigand Funk (1999) theorize that people differ n their con

flict avoidance tendencies and people who are more likelyto dislike conflict are less likely to participate in politics.The authors find that conflict avoidance is significantlyand inversely related to political participation.7

'Consistent with our notion regarding the importance of relevance

and civility, Sides, Lipsitz, and Grossman (2010) find that citi

zens' evaluations of the negative tone of a campaign are distinct

from their evaluations of the informational nature of the cam

paign messages. Brader (2006) and Brooks and Geer (2007) look at

the interaction of different message dimensions in their research.

Brader explores the combination of visual and sound stimuli in

an advertisement, along with the content. Brooks and Geer (2007)

investigate the intersection of the civility of the advertisement withthe content of the advertisement (i.e., issues vs. traits).

7In the field ofpsychology,

researchers have found individual

differences in people's attention to threatening social cues (e.g.,








These findings suggest that individual differences exist in people's reactions to negative or threatening stimuli.We extend this logic to negative political messages: certain people will be more sensitive to irrelevant and uncivil

messages and may react more strongly when exposed to

these types of messages during campaigns. We think thatthese differences in sensitivity to negative information gobeyond standard political variables, such as political so

phistication, partisanship, or political interest.8 Instead,we contend that people have distinct attitudes concern

ing their sensitivity or receptivity to negative politicalrhetoric. Some citizens have an easier time toleratingnegative political messages, while others dislike publiccriticism and grow weary of such messages as campaigns

progress.In this article, we hope to advance our understanding

of the impact of negative messages on people's impressions of campaigns by examining the intersection betweenthe relevance and civility of negative messages and how

people differ in their reactions to these types of mes

sages. We rely on a representative survey sample of over

1,000 respondents along with data assessing the contentof political communications during the 2006 senatorial

campaigns. We turn now to a discussion of our data and

measurements.

DataThis study uses data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) to investigate the impactof negative campaigning in U.S. Senate races. The CCESis a preelection/postelection Internet survey, conducted

by Polimetrix, Inc., on behalf of a consortium of scholarsat 37 colleges and universities. Each group of scholars in

the consortium designed a module with unique sur

vey questions asked of 1,000 respondents. In other words,each group of scholars controlled the content of ques

tions for 1,000 citizens. In addition, these respondentscompleted a common content survey. The common

content survey included 30,000 respondents.

Polimetrix uses a sample matching methodology to

produce a sample that is representative of the overall U.S.electorate (Rivers, n.d.). Comparisons of the CCES sam

ple with census data suggest that the CCES sample issomewhat more educated and younger than the popula

tion at large. However, the CCES sample matches censusdata in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity composition(Hill et al. 2007). And, analysis conducted by Hill et al.

(2007) suggests that the 2006 CCES produces an Internet

sample that looks similar to existing RDD phone surveys.For our module, Polimetrix sampled about 75 re

spondents in 21 of the 28 U.S. Senate races featuringa majority party incumbent and a majority party chal

lenger, for a total of 1,045 respondents.9 The races varied

dramatically in terms of competition, in the amount of

money spent, and in the amount of media attention givento the contests.

In addition to the survey data, we also collected con

textual data regarding the political advertisements aired

during the Senate campaigns and the news coverage ofthese campaigns in state newspapers. Turning first to

the political advertising data, we collected advertisements

from the National Journal website. The National Journalwebsite included downloadable links to almost all U.S.Senate advertisements publicly available (Grose and Globetti 2007).10 We searched the candidates' own websites,as well as other websites, to increase the completeness of

candidates' advertisement samples. With this additionalsearch, we were able to include advertisements from the

following races: Utah, California, Texas, and Wyoming.We coded 302 advertisements for the 42 candi

dates.11 Some contests featured a great number of politicalhreatening facial expressions). For example, anxious individuals

appear to be more sensitive to threat stimuli and are quicker at

perceiving threatening messages (Bradley et al. 1998). Also, psy

chologists relying on functional magnetic imaging find that individuals who score higher on neuroticism demonstrate higher brain

reactivity to negative pictures (Canli et al. 2001). Researchers havealso suggested that there are cultural differences in people's desireto avoid conflict. In particular, many East Asian cultures value har

mony and conflict avoidance, compared with European Americans(see Lind, Huo, and Tyler 1994). In addition, some feminist scholars

(e.g., Gilligan 1982) suggest that women prefer less confrontational

procedures compared with men.

8To be sure, researchers have explored who is most susceptibleto negative campaigning. For example, some scholars suggest that

Independents are more likely than partisans to be demobilized bynegative campaigning (e.g., Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1997; Kahnand Kenney 1999; Lau and Pomper 2004). These explorations,

however, have yielded somewhat inconsistent findings (see Brooks2006; Sigelman and Kugler 2003).

9In selecting the sample of races, we stratified by the competitiveness of the incumbent/challenger contest. In particular, we sampled10 races classified as competitive (toss-up or leaning) by the CookPolitical Report and 11 races classified as noncompetitive (solidDemocrat or solid Republican). We did not include open races inour sample because of limited resources and the small number of

open races contested (n = 5). In the online Supporting Information, we present information about the races in our sample.

10Ad Spotlight at the National Journal website featured 544 advertisements for 15 of the 21 races included in our sample. We stratifiedthe population of advertisements on Ad Spotlight by candidate andcollected a maximum of 21 ads per candidate.

11Overall, the mean number of advertisements coded per candidate

was 7.2, with a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 21. We cannotestimate the completeness of our advertising sample because we








advertisements aired repeatedly over the months preced

ing Election Day. In contrast, in some Senate campaigns,there were no advertisements on television at all. In cod

ing the political advertisements, we assessed a variety offactors associated with the tone of the advertisement, in

cluding the civility of each commercial, the relevance ofits content, and the substance of its message.12

Turning to the news coverage, we collected newspaper

data from each state's largest circulating newspaper from

October 1 to Election Day. We coded 2,077 news articlesfor the 21 Senate races. In coding the news content, we

assessed a variety of factors associated with the tone ofthe coverage, including the number, content, and source

of criticisms published about each candidate.13

Measurement of Key Concepts

There are no established measures for defining the relevance and civility of commercials. In addition, we knowof no prior studies that have measured respondents' toler

ance for irrelevant and uncivilmessages. Consequently,

inthis section we explain how we developed new measures

for these key concepts. We spend a significant amountof time and effort determining the validity of these measures. We employ three tests to determine the validity ofthe measures assessing the relevance and civility of the

commercials, and we conduct two validity tests for the

survey questions measuring citizens' tolerance of nega

tive messages.

Relevance andCivility

inNegativeCommercials

To content analyze the political advertisements, coders

distinguished between messages that were relevant andirrelevant for governing.14 For example, negative com

mercials classified as relevant by coders contained the fol

lowing examples of content: The Senator voted to give

tax breaks for companies that move overseas... or The

Senator voted 96% of the time with Bush. In contrast,

negative commercials classified as irrelevant contained

content such as the following: The candidates' support

ers are from Hollywood or My opponent parties withPlayboy playmates.

Coders also assessed the civility of the message in each

of the political advertisements.15 We adopted a generousinterpretation for determining civility given the roughand-tumble nature of campaign messages in U.S. Senate

campaigns (Kahn and Kenney 1999). That is, there needed

have no measure of the population of commercials aired duringthe 2006 campaigns. Unfortunately, we do not have access to howoften or where the ads were shown during the 2006 election. The

Wisconsin Advertising Project (WiscAds), the main source for data

regarding the frequency and timing of political advertisements, did

not collect data for the 2006 election cycle. This is clearly a limita

tion of our advertising data. To measure the reach of the political

advertising in our study, we employed campaign spending and es

timated a multiplicative term where each candidate's advertisingwas interacted with the candidate's campaign spending. However,this alternative specification did not improve the performance of

our models in the upcoming analyses.

12In conducting our content analysis, we followed the proceduresdescribed by Neuendorf (2002). A team of eight research assistants

(graduate and undergraduate political science students) coded the

advertisements. Coders were provided with the codesheet and acodebook containing detailed instructions for coding each variable

(the codesheet is available in the online Supporting Information).The comprehensive guidelines in the codebook helped to reduce

individual differences among coders. Coders were instructed to

view the advertisements as if they were the average citizen. For

example, while a political science student may be aware that favor

ing increases in the size of government is a liberal position, a typical

person viewing the advertisement may not make such an inference.

During the content analysis training procedure, the coders com

pleted a pilot coding of 10 political advertisements. Differences

among coders were discussed and, when necessary, adjustmentswere made to the codesheet and codebook. The pilot procedure

helped standardize the coders' techniques so that all coders were

assessing the content in the same way.Given the

comprehensiveness of the training procedure, maturation effects by coders duringthe content analysis process were reduced. In addition, coders were

kept blind to the purpose of the study as a way to reduce potentialbias. Eighty advertisements (10 per coder) were subject to reliability

analysis. One of the authors conducted the reliability checks, com

paring the author's coding of the advertisements with the coding bythe research assistants. Cohen's kappa was used to assess intercoder

reliability, with a resulting score of .91 (p < .001), indicating a highlevel of agreement among coders.

13A team of six research assistants (graduate and undergraduate

political science students) coded the news coverage. The procedureoutlined in footnote 12 for the political advertising content analysiswas employed for the newspaper content analysis. An intercoder

reliability analysis using Cohens kappa was performed; kappa=

.93 (p < .001), indicating a high level of agreement among coders.

A copy of this codesheet is available in the online Supporting In

formation.

14The codebook instructions for coding the relevance of the adver

tisement read, Doyou

consider the content of the advertisement

relevant for governing? Advertisements focus on diverse subjects,such as: a candidate's past drug use (e.g., in college), a candidate's

vote for a tax increase while serving in the House of Representatives, a former spouse of a candidate accusing the candidate of

marital infidelity in a divorce proceeding a decade earlier, or an

opponent criticizing a candidate for his or her lack of electoral ex

perience. The question is: do you think MOST PEOPLE viewing an

advertisement would consider the content very relevant, somewhat

relevant, somewhat irrelevant, or very irrelevant?

15For the civility code, the codebook instructions read, Some ads,

even if negative, present the information in a civil manner (diplo

matically, without derision, etc.), while other ads rely on a more

uncivil tone (e.g., overly strident, rude, discourteous). Do you think

MOST PEOPLE watchingthe ad would consider it somewhat civil,

very civil, somewhat uncivil, or very uncivil?








to be an explicit use of harsh, shrill, or pejorative adjectives describing candidates, their policies, or their personal traits for an advertisement to be considered uncivil.The following are sentences taken from advertisements

categorized as civil by coders: The candidate voted 18times to raise taxes, or He talks conservative, but his

record says otherwise. In comparison, advertisements

with the following messages were coded as uncivil in tone:The Senator shows a disgusting display of arrogance, orAfter all these years, can't he offer more than smears and

distortions?These examples are from actual commercials aired

during the 2006 senatorial campaigns and illustrate differences between irrelevant and relevant messages and

differences between civil and uncivil messages. Accordingto our coders, most of the negative commercials in our

sample were viewed as focusing on a relevant topic.16 The

coders scored 88% of the ads as relevant and only 12%

as irrelevant.17 This is not surprising given that campaignmanagers and insiders have argued that attacks need to

resonate with voters' concerns and worries (Fenno 1996;

Kahn and Kenney 1999). The negative messages, on theother hand, generated more variance in terms of civility.

Fifty-three percent of the negative advertisements were

classified as civil, while 47% were considered uncivil.We perform three tests to assess the validity of the

measures of relevance and civility. First, we look atwhether the number of criticisms per advertisement increases as the relevance and civility of the advertisementdecreases. We expect that the nastiest commercials (com

mercials that are less relevant and less civil) will also include the greatest number of criticisms.18 The content

analysis confirms our expectations; the number of criticisms per advertisement is statistically significant and

negatively correlated with the civility of the commercials

(Kendall's tau b = —.27, p < .01) and relevance of thecommercials (Kendall's taub = —.26, p < .04).19

Second, we examine whether the relevance and civil

ity of political commercials are related to the competitiveness of the campaigns. We expect that candidates runningin competitive races would be more likely to produce negative messages embracing an uncivil tone and focusingon irrelevant messages, since prior research shows that

negativity—in general—increases in hard-fought races

(e.g., Kahn and Kenney 2004; Lau and Pomper 2004).We find that competitive races (i.e., fewer than 20 pointsseparating the candidates in preelection polls) generatemessages with a less civil tone and with less relevant con

tent when compared with lopsided races (i.e., more than20 points separating the candidates in preelection polls).In particular, the average civility score is —.23 in com

petitive races and .05 in noncompetitive races (p < .10,one-tailed test). The average relevance score is .79 in com

petitive races and 1.0 in noncompetitive races (p < .05,one-tailed test).20

As a final validity check, we look at whether the rel

evance and civility of the negative commercials (as mea

sured by the content analysis) predict people's assessment

of the tone of the Senate campaigns in their state. If wehave captured the tone and content of the advertisements

properly, then these indicators should be strongly correlated with respondents' perceptions of the tone of the

16If we use the more traditional operationalization of negative advertisements as attack ads or comparative ads (e.g., Geer 2006;Jamieson et al. 2000) and further distinguish between negativeadvertisements focusing on traits and issues, we find that attackadvertisements focusing on issues and comparative advertisements

emphasizing issues are the most common types of negative commercials. In particular, 26% of the negative advertisements were

categorized as issue attack ads, and 26% of the ads were classifiedas comparative issue ads. In contrast, negative advertisements fo

cusing on personality were less common. In our sample, only 6%of the advertisements are comparative trait advertisements, and15% of the advertisements are categorized as trait attack ads.And, 15% of the negative ads are issue/trait attack ads and 12%are issue/trait comparative advertisements. The preponderance of

negative issue ads, compared with negative trait ads, has been documented by other scholars. For example, Franz et al. (2008) findthat the majority of negative ads aired during U.S. House, Senate,and presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 focused on issues.

17While measuring relevance of negative commercials is less

straightforward than simply distinguishing between negative commercials focusing on issues or traits, we think that the effort isworthwhile. First, prior work examining the impact of negativetrait versus negative issue advertisements has been inconclusive.Some researchers find that negative issue advertisements are moreeffective than negative trait advertisements (e.g., Min 2004), whileothers find that negative trait advertisements are more influentialthan negative issue appeals (e.g., Brooks and Geer 2007). Therefore,the trait/issue dichotomy may not be a critical dimension. Second,

negative trait advertisements are not necessarily irrelevant. Accord

ing to our content analysis, 40% of the negative trait commercialsare irrelevant, while 60% are relevant. Second, Brooks and Geer's

(2007) study shows that respondents do not differ in their view ofthe informational value of civil negative trait commercials and civil

negative issue commercials, suggesting that the issue/trait dimension is not the key dimension determining relevance.

18All commercials were scored on a 5-point scale: —2 (very uncivilor very irrelevant), —1 (somewhat uncivil or somewhat relevant),0 (neutral), +1 (somewhat civil or somewhat relevant), +2 (verycivil or very relevant).

19We rely on a one-tailed test since our hypothesis is directional. Weuse Kendall's tau b because of the ordinal nature of the relevanceand civility variable.

20We looked at whether the relevance and civility of political discourse increase with the seniority of the senator. Senior senatorsare less vulnerable and are less likely to generate quality challengers(Jacobson 2009). We find a significant positive correlation betweenthe seniority of the senator and the civility (r = .51, p < .01) of the

commercials, and the seniority of the senator and the relevance (r= .55, p < .02) of the political advertisements.








campaigns. We asked people during the postelection sur

vey to describe the tone of the U.S. Senate campaign as

very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat nega

tive, or very negative. 21 To predict people's views of the

tone of the campaign, we include the measures of civilityand relevance of the candidates' campaign commercials.22

We expect that as civility of the negative commercials increases, people will view the campaign discourse as more

positive. In contrast, we expect that the relationship between the relevance of negative messages and the tone of

the campaign to be negative. That is, as the relevance of

negative messages increases, we expect people's view of

the campaign to become more negative since we expect

relevant negative messages will be more influential thanirrelevant negative messages.

To avoid specification error, we include several standard control variables that are correlated with people's

views of the overall tenor of a senatorial campaign. Weinclude a simple measure of the number of criticisms airedin the candidates' political commercials.23 This control is

important to be certain that the measures of the relevance

and the civility of the ads are not simply picking up overall

negativity. We also include a measure of the number ofcriticisms published about the candidates in the largestcirculating newspaper in the state.24 We also control for

the context of the campaign by including a measure of thecloseness of the campaign based on preelection polls.25

The results of the MLM/MLE analysis are presented

in Table l.26 The dependent variable, tone of the cam

Table 1 MLM/MLE Estimates PredictingRespondents' Assessments of theOverall Tone of the U.S. Senate

Campaign1

Campaign Tone Fixed Components

Advertisement Characteristics

Relevance of Negative Advertisement —,03(.01)***

Civility of Negative Advertisement ,03(.01)***Campaign Characteristics

Competition ,005(.008)Criticisms in Candidates' Ads —,04(.02)**Criticisms in the Newspapers

—,001(.0007)*Constant 1.84(.09)***Variance Components

Intercept .05(.01)**N (survey) /N states) 482/21

'Parameter estimates are followed by standard errors in parentheses.Note: The dependent variable campaign tone is a scale ranging from

1 (very negative) to 4 (very positive). The advertisement charac

teristics run from low (civility or relevance) to high (civility or

relevance). See text for additional information about the operationalization of the variables, and see Supporting Information for

exact question wording.P-values are based on one-tailed tests:

***p < .01; **p < .05; *p < .10.

paign, ranges from 1 (very negative) to 4 (very positive).

The results demonstrate that the tone of the candidates'commercials significantly influences people's perceptionsof the tone of the campaign. As the candidates' negativecommercials become increasingly civil, respondents viewthe campaign as more positive. And, as expected, the relevance of the negative advertisements is negatively relatedto people's assessment of the tone of the campaign. When

candidates' negative commercials focus on more relevant

topics, people see the campaign as more negative.

Turning to the control variables, the number of crit

icisms presented in the candidates' commercials leads

people to viewthe

campaignas more

negative.It is im

portant that this variable, as well as the relevance and

civility of the advertisements, reaches statistical significance, demonstrating that our measures of relevance and

civility are not simply tapping the number of criticisms in

the ads. Similarly, as the number of criticisms in the pressincreases, people are significantly more likely to view the

campaign tone as negative.

21Twenty-five percent of respondents characterized their campaignas very negative, 22% answered somewhat negative, 13% an

swered somewhat positive, 5% said very positive, and 15%

answered don't know. Respondents who answered don't know

were eliminated from the analysis in Table 1.

22In this analysis, we multiply the relevance rating (or civility rat

ing) by the total number of criticisms in the advertisements in

order to capture the intensity of the message. Then, we combine

the measure of relevant negative advertisements for incumbents

and relevant negative advertisements for challengers since we are

predicting general tone of campaign. Similarly, we combine the

measures of civilnegative

advertisements for incumbents and chal

lengers.

23This measure is a simple count of the number of criticisms aired

in the candidates' commercials. The average number of criticisms

in the advertisements in a Senate race is 13.94 (with a standard

deviation of 8.06).

24The number of press criticisms in a Senate race averaged 117.3

(with a standard deviation of 114.0).

25We relied on preelection polling data published in the 2006 New

York Times Election Guide, and we subtracted incumbent supportfrom challenger support.

26We employ multilevel modeling (MLM) with maximum likeli

hood estimation (MLE) because we have a cluster of survey re

spondents located in the same state or campaign. Under these

circumstances, the OLS assumptions of uncorrelated error terms

maybe violated (Luke 2004; Steenbergen and Jones 2002).








Individual Differences in Tolerance towardIncivility and Irrelevance

We contend that people differ in their tolerance toward

negative campaigning, and we have developed four surveyitems to assess people's tolerance for negative campaign

ing. We presented respondents with four statements and

asked them to indicate whether they strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with

each statement. The first two statements tap the person's

tolerance for uncivil discourse, and the second two state

ments measure the person's tolerance for irrelevant com

mentary. We vary whether an agree response means the

respondent likes or dislikes uncivil or irrelevant negativecommercials.27 The four items are as follows:

Some negative advertisements are so nasty that I

stop paying attention to what the candidates aresaying.

Mean-spirited commercials attacking the opponent are appropriate during election campaigns.

Negative advertisements attacking a candidate's

personal life are inappropriate.

I find negative political commercials attackingthe opponent's personal life as a young person to

be interesting.

Responses to the two civility questions suggest thatmost people in our sample do not like mean-spiritedcampaigns. For example, 47% of respondents strongly

agree and 35% somewhat agree that campaign ad

vertisements are .. .so nasty that I stop paying at

tention. Similarly, 45% of respondents strongly dis

agree and 27% somewhat disagree that mean-spiritedcommercials... are appropriate during a campaign.

Turning to the relevance of certain types of attacks, more

than half of the respondents (55%) strongly agree and

27% somewhat agree that attacking a candidate's personal life is inappropriate. Similarly, 61% of the peoplein the survey strongly disagree and 21% somewhat

disagree that negative advertisements attacking a candidate's personal life as a young person are interesting. These

responses resonate with the electorate's long-standing an

tagonism toward negative campaign rhetoric (Kahn and

Kenney 2004).We conduct two tests to examine the validity of the

individual measures of tolerance toward incivility and

irrelevance. In our first test, we assess whether theoreti

cally relevant variables help predict people's level of tolerance toward negative messages. To predict people's levelof tolerance toward negative messages, we look at two

sets of variables: demographic variables (i.e., the gender of the respondent, the respondent's age, and the re

spondent's education level) and political variables (i.e.,the respondent's political sophistication, the respondent'sideology, and the strength of the respondent's party af

filiation).28 Research examining the connection between

negative campaigning and turnout suggests that women

and Independents may react most strongly to negative

messages. In particular, some scholars find that women

and Independents are more likely to become demobilizedas negativity increases (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1997;Kahn and Kenney 1999; Kern and Just 1997). These individuals may be more affected by campaign negativitybecause they are less tolerant of uncivil and irrelevant

messages.29We estimate two OLS models, one predicting an in

dividual's tolerance toward irrelevant messages and one

predicting an individual's tolerance toward uncivil mes

sages.30 The results presented in Table 2 indicate thatcertain people are significantly more tolerant of uncivil

27See the online Supporting Information, for a copy of the surveyquestions used in this study.

28Strength of party affiliation is measured by recoding the 7-pointparty identification scale into 3 points (strong partisans = 3, weak

partisans = 2, and Independents = 1). Respondent's ideology ismeasured on a 100-point ideological scale (where 0 is extremelyliberal and 100 is

extremely conservative),and we recode the 100

point scale into five points (0-20 = 1,21-40 = 2,41-60 = 3,61-80= 4, 81-100 = 5). The measure of political sophistication takeson one of three values: 0 (incorrectly placing both parties on the

ideological scale), 1 (correctly placing one of the parties on the ide

ological scale), 2 (correctly placing both parties on the ideologicalscale). Correct placements include locating the Democratic partyon the liberal side of the scale and locating the Republican party onthe conservative side of the scale. Political interest is measured witha 3-point scale ranging from very interested (3), to somewhat interested (2), to not very interested (1). Gender is coded 1 = male, 0 =

female; age is an interval measure; education is an interval measurebased on years of schooling. We look at ideology (as opposed to

strength of ideology) because we know that Republicans are more

likely to use negative advertising, compared with Democrats (e.g.,

Lau and Pomper 2001; West 2010), and researchers have found thatRepublicans are less likely to be demobilized by negative campaigning, compared with Democrats and Independents (Ansolabehereand Iyengar 1997).

29We also looked at whether strength of ideology (like strength of

party) was related to tolerance of uncivil and irrelevant negativemessages. In both cases, we find strength of ideology is significantly related to tolerance, with strong ideologues being more tolerant of irrelevant and uncivil negative messages than respondentswith more moderate ideological profiles. These findings mirror the

findings for strength of party identification.

30We combine the two measures of tolerance toward irrelevant

messages into a single relevance index, and we combine the two

measures of tolerance toward uncivil messages into a single civilityindex. Both indices range from a low of 2 (not tolerant) to a high of 8








framework introduced earlier, we expect to find a backlash effect when candidates attack their opponents withuncivil and irrelevant messages. We expect citizens to findthese messages offensive because they are delivered in anuncivil manner and focus on topics not germane to gov

erning. To measure the backlash effect, we employ a binarycoding where the sponsoring candidates' commercials receive a score of 1 if these commercials are rated as low on

relevance and low on civility. All other combinations of

commercials receive a score of 0.38

We include additional measures assessing the contextof the campaign as well as measures tapping the political

profiles of the respondents. We include a variable mea

suring the number of press criticisms published about the

candidate to capture the general negativity of the cam

paign.39 In addition, we include a measure assessing the

competitiveness of the campaign. Based on prior research

examining campaign intensity, we expect incumbents tobe evaluated more favorably in noncompetitive races and

challengers to be rated more positively in competitiveraces (Kahn and Kenney 1999; Westlye 1991). Finally, we

control for respondents' ideological and political preferences since people are likely to rate a candidate more

positively when they share the candidate's party and ide

ological positions.40

The MLM/MLE results predicting evaluations of theincumbents and challengers are presented in Table 3. The

findings demonstrate that the relevance and civility of the

political advertisements perform precisely as expected.Overall, in each of the eight equations, the measure tap

ping the relevance and civility of political advertising is

statistically significant and is signed in the hypothesizeddirection. In each case, as relevance and incivility of theadvertisements increase, people's evaluations of the tar

geted candidates decline. This finding is consistent re

gardless of whether respondents are evaluating the can

didates in terms of (1) personality traits, (2) affective

impressions, (3) issue competence, or (4) overall impressions.41 In fact, the relevance and civility of the advertisements are more powerful and more consistent in their

impact than the amount of press criticisms or the closeness of the race, suggesting that the relevance and civility

measure is capturing something beyond the general negativity of the campaign and the competitiveness of the

contest.

In addition, the influence of the relevance and civil

ity measure is more powerful in the challenger modelsthan in the incumbent models, according to the parameter estimates. This indicates that the content and tone

of incumbents' advertising is more effective at loweringevaluations of the challengers than vice versa. For exam

ple, in the model predicting respondents' assessments of

candidates' personality traits, the parameter estimate for

the relevance and civility variable is —.76 in the challengermodel and —.42 in the incumbent model.

To provide a clearer picture of how the relevance

and civility of negative messages influence citizens'

assessments of candidates' personal traits, we calcu

late the first differences for the maximum likelihood

strategies can expect to hurt their own evaluations (Lau and Rovner

2009; Lau, Sigelman, and Rovner 2007). And, the decline in their

own image may offset any damage done to their opponent. The

preponderance of the studies identifying a backlash effect employ

experimental designs (e.g., Chang 2003; Houston and Doan 1999).A small number of studies examining survey data find some evi

dence for a backlash effect (e.g., Fridkin and Kenney 2004; Lau and

Pomper 2004).

38We rely on the measures of relevance and civility developed for

the relevance/civility index when operationalizing the backlash ef

fect. The sponsoring candidate received a score of 1 on the backlash

measure if the sponsoring candidate's commercials scored below

the mean on relevance and civility. If the sponsoring candidate's

commercials received a mix score (e.g., above the mean on civil

ity, below the mean on relevance) or a high score (i.e., above the

mean on relevance and above the mean on civility), the sponsoringcandidate received a score of 0.

39We also included an additional measure of negative advertising: a

simple summation of the number of criticisms offered in each can

didate's political advertisements. This measure does not capturethe relevance and civility of the candidates' negative communi

cations. In the models predicting evaluations of incumbents, the

number of criticisms of incumbents in the challengers' advertise

ments never significantly depressed evaluations of the incumbents.

In the models predicting evaluations of challengers, the number of

criticisms of challengers in the incumbents' advertisements never

significantly depressed evaluations of the challenger.

40To code ideological proximity, we rely on the respondent's self

placement on a 100-point ideological scale and the respondent's

placement of the incumbent and challenger on the same ideological scale. We recoded the 100-point scales into five points (0-20

= 1, 21-40 = 2, 41-60 = 3, 61-80 = 4, 81-100 = 5). Then, we

calculated (1) the absolute value of the difference between the re

spondent's ideological self-placement and respondent's placementof the incumbent's ideology and (2) the absolute value of the dif

ferencebetween the

respondent's ideological self-placementand

the respondent's placement of the challenger's ideology. Finally, we

subtracted the respondent's closeness to the incumbent from the

respondent's closeness to the challenger. The resulting ideological proximity score ranges from 4 (the respondent and incumbent

share the same location on the ideological scale) to —4 (the respondent and the challenger share the same location on the ideological

scale).

41In addition to the four dependent variables displayed in Table 3,

we also develop a model estimating the impact of the relevance and

civility of the commercials on vote choice. We find that the measure

assessing the relevance and civility of the candidates' commercials

is significant (estimate = —.07, with a standard error of .02). Partyand ideological proximity are significant in the model, as is com

petition. However, news criticismsand the backlash effect fail to

reach statistical significance.







KIM I. FRIDKIN AND PATRICK J. KENNEY

Table 3 MLM/MLE Estimates Predicting Evaluations of U.S. Senate Candidates: The Impact ofRelevance and Civility of Negative Commercials1

Affect1 Traits Issues Overall Evaluations

Incumbents

Fixed ComponentsCandidate Commercials '

Relevance/Incivility —.29(.16)** —,42(.23)** —.46(.21)** —.33(.14)***Backlash Effect —.55(36)* —.93(.52)** —.50(.48) —,57(.32)**Respondent Characteristics

Party Proximity ,41(.05)*** 48( 08)*** 43( 06)*** .51 (.05)***Ideological Proximity ,64(.05)*** .98(08)*** .71(.06)*** .75(.06)***Campaign Characteristics

Competition —.003(.01) ,03(.02)* .02(.01)** .006(.009)Criticisms in the News ~.007(.003)*** —.01(.003)*** —,003(.003) —.006(.002)***Constant 7.67(.12)*** 14.28(.17)*** 7.73(. 16)*** 5.17(. 10)***Variance Components

Intercept .10(.07)* .19(. 16)* ,23(.13)* .04(.04)N (Survey)/N (states) 646/21 622/21 716/21

Challengers

793/21

Fixed Components

Candidate Commercials

Relevance/Incivility —.36(.25)* —.76(.39)** —.60(.22)*** —.36(.25)*Backlash Effect —.38(.36) —.06(.56) —.36(.31) —,07(.35)Respondent Characteristics

Party Proximity .55(.06)*** 69( 09)*** .51(.07)*** .63(.05)***Ideological Proximity .47(.05)*** .82(09)*** ,52(.07)*** .61(.05)***Campaign Characteristics

Competition —,01(.02) —,0007(.03) —.003(.02) —.006(.02)Criticisms in the News —.002(.004) —,0005(.006) .0005(.004) —.0002(.003)Constant 7.57(.17)*** 12.88(.29)*** 7.21 (. 15)*** 4.75(.17)***Variance Components

Intercept .24(.13)** .55(.34)** o * .23(. 13)**N(Survey)/N(states) 462/21 374/21 479/21 621/21

'Parameter estimates are followed by standard errors in parentheses. P-values are based on one-tailed tests: ***p < .01; **p < .05; *p < .10.2Affect is measured on a scale ranging from 4 to 12. Traits are measured on a scale ranging from 5 to 20. Issues are measured on a scaleranging from 2 to 12. Overall evaluations are measured on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. See the text and Supporting Information forinformation about the operationalization of the variables.

3Relevance/Incivility is measured on a 3-point scale where the candidate is given a score of 3 if the candidate's commercials are rated ashigh on relevance and low on civility, the candidate is given a score of 2 if the commercials are rated as high on relevance and high on

civility, and the candidate is given a score of 1 if the commercials are rated as low on relevance. The Backlash Effect is measured with abinary variable where the sponsoring candidates' commercials receive a score of 1 if these commercials are rated as low on relevance andlow on civility, and 0 for all other combinations of the sponsoring candidates' commercials.

coefficients (King 1989, 107-8).42 We want to estimatethe average probability (i.e., 0 to 1.0) that people will

lower their evaluations of candidates' personal traits asthe negative messages change in terms of relevance and

civility. We turn first to an examination of the sizeof the effects when challengers attack incumbents. In

42The first differences are estimates of the probability that citizenswill decrease assessments of candidates as the content and tone of

campaign messages change. In nonlinear equations a single unit

changein X will

have a different effect on the expected value ofY depending on the points at which the curve is evaluated (King1989,108). While calculating the first differences, all other variablesare held at their means.








particular, if challengers move from producing irrelevantcommercials to producing relevant and civil commer

cials, there is a .22 probability that citizens will decreasetheir trait assessments of incumbents' personal traits. If

challengers move from marketing relevant and civil commercials to relevant and uncivil commercials, then voters

have a .15 probability of decreasing their assessments ofthe incumbents' personal traits. In comparison, changes

in the incumbents' commercials have a larger impact on

assessments of the challengers' personalities. In particu

lar, moving from irrelevant commercials to relevant and

civil commercials produces a .25 probability that citizenswill decrease evaluations of challengers' traits, and changing from relevant and civil commercials to relevant anduncivil messages produces another .25 probability thatcitizens will decrease their impressions of the challengers'personalities.43

Looking at the remaining variables in the models, thevariable estimating backlash is statistically significant inthree of the four incumbent equations. But, the backlashvariable does not reach statistical significance in any ofthe challenger models. These findings suggest negativecampaigning by incumbents is risky.44 While incumbentswill be effective at depressing views of their challengersas their commercials become more relevant and more

uncivil, incumbents who air irrelevant and uncivil advertisements run the risks of offending potential supportersand hurting their own evaluations.

We also find that press criticisms significantly influence impressions of the incumbent in three of the four

equations. In contrast, the parameter estimates for press

criticisms never reach statistical significance in the four

equations predicting evaluations of the challengers. Press

criticisms are probably more powerful for incumbentsbecause incumbents garner significantly more press cov

erage than challengers (Kahn and Kenney 1999; Westlye

1991).Finally, and as expected, ideological and party prox

imity have a substantial and consistent impact on impres

sions of incumbents and challengers.This is not

surprising. What is impressive, however, is that the relevance and

civility of advertising exert a strong impact on candidate

evaluations, even controlling for party and ideologicalproximity.

We turn now to our final analysis. Are the strong

effects of relevance and civility modified or altered by citizens' tolerance of negative attacks? As discussed earlier,we expect that people with a low tolerance for uncivil

and irrelevant messages will be more influenced by thesetypes of communications. The impact of these messages

will be greater simply because these individuals are moresensitive to the content and tone of the negative adver

tisements.

To test whether tolerance for uncivil and irrelevant

messages influences the impact of negative messages, we

combine the measures of tolerance for uncivil messagesand tolerance for irrelevant messages into a single index,

ranging from 4 to 16.45 We then divide our sample at themean and reestimate the MLM/MLE equations presented

in Table 3 for people low in tolerance of negative messages(Table 4) and for people high in tolerance of negativemessages (Table 5).46

Turning first to Table 4, the top panel presents theresults for evaluations of incumbents while the bottom

panel presents the results for evaluations of challengers.

We are most interested in the strength, statistical significance, and direction of the parameter estimates for themeasure tapping the relevance and civility of the negative advertisements. The relevance and civility variable is

statistically significant in three of the four equations for

incumbents and in four of the four equations for challengers. In addition, the sign of the relevance and civilityvariable is in the hypothesized (negative) direction in eachof the eight models in Table 4.

As in Table 3, the size of the parameter estimates for

relevance and civility is larger in the challenger models,

compared with the incumbent models. These results indicate that for people sensitive to negative campaigning, the

incumbents' messages are more damaging than the chal

lengers' messages. Also, consistent with the findings inTable 3, the backlash effect s evident for incumbents and

not forchallengers.

In addition, the criticismspublishedin the newspaper damage evaluations of incumbents in

each of the four models, while failing to significantly affect

impressions of challengers.Turning to Table 5, these analyses focus only on peo

ple who have a high score on the tolerance scale (i.e.,43We also included a measure assessing the proportion of positive advertisements produced by the candidates during the cam

paigns, based on our content analysis. We find that the proportionof positive advertisements produced by a candidate (incumbentor challenger) does not significantly influence evaluations of the

sponsoring candidate. The coefficient representing positive adver

tisements fails to influence evaluations in each of the eight equations

presented in Table 3.

44Kahn and Kenney (2004) and Lau and Pomper (2004) also find

a greater backlash effect for incumbents, compared to challengers,for candidates running in U.S. Senate elections.

45The mean tolerance level is 7.0 on a scale ranging from 4 to 16.

46Dividing the sample by level of tolerance toward negative mes

sages is an appropriate statistical procedure for examining how

tolerance influences theimpact

of thesenegative messages

on eval

uations (see Brambor, Clark, and Golder 2005).







KIML. FRIDKIN AND PATRICK J. KENNEY

MLM/MLE Estimates Predicting Evaluations of U.S. Senate Candidates: The Impact ofRelevance and Civility of Negative Commercials for People with Low Tolerance for NegativeCampaigning1

Affect2 Traits Issues Overall Evaluations

Incumbents

Fixed ComponentsCandidate Commercials3

Relevance/Incivility —.28(.27) —.45(.27)** —.65(.25)*** ,37(.24)*Backlash Effect —1.00(.61)* —,44(.62) —,77(.58)* —1.15(.53)**Respondent Characteristics

Party Proximity ,70(.08)*** ,83(.ll)*** ,72(.08)*** .77(.08)***Ideological Proximity ,46(.08)*** 79(H)*** ,53(.08)*** .62(.08)***Campaign Characteristics

Competition —.03(.02)* —.02(.02) —.02(.02) —.03(.02)*Criticisms in the News —,01(.004)*** —.01(.004)*** —.007(.004)** —,01(.004)***Constant 7.70(.20)*** 14.36(.20)*** 7.77(.19)*** 5.22(.18)***Variance Components

Intercept .38(.21)** .24(.24) .31(.18)** .22(. 18)N (Survey) /N States) 308/21 293/21 345/21

Challengers

380/21

Fixed ComponentsCandidate Commercials

Relevance/Incivility —.46(.33)* —1.02(.45)*** —.97(.34)*** —.57(.30)**Backlash Effect —.55(.47) —.25(.67) —.36(.48) —.12(.43)Respondent Characteristics

Party Proximity ,66(.08)*** ,75(.15)*** .56(.ll)*** ,82(.08)***

Ideological Proximity ,39(.08)*** ,70(.15)*** .37(.ll)*** .45(.08)***Campaign Characteristics

Competition —,009(.02) —.02(.03) —.03(.02)* —.01(.02)Criticisms in the News —,004(.005) —.004(.007) —,003(.005) —.003(.005)Constant 7.68(.23)*** 12.92(.34)*** 7.24(.25)*** 4.92(.21)***Variance Components

Intercept .38(.23)** .47(.53) .25(.24) .27(.20)*N(Survey)/N(States) 229./21 189/21 228/21 291/21

'Parameter estimates are followed by standard errors in parentheses. P-values are based on one-tailed tests: ***p < .01; **p < .05; *p < .10.2Affect is measured on a scale ranging from 4 to 12. Traits are measured on a scale ranging from 5 to 20. Issues are measured on a scaleranging from 2 to 12. Overall evaluations are measured on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. See the text and Supporting Information foroperationalization of the variables.

3Relevance/Incivilityis measured on a

3-pointscale where the candidate

is scored a 3 if the candidate's commercials are rated as high onrelevance and low on civility, the candidate is given a score of 2 if the commercials are rated as high on relevance and high on civility, andthe candidate is given a score of 1 if the commercials are rated as low on relevance. The Backlash Effect is measured with a binary variablewhere the sponsoring candidates' commercials receive a score of 1 if these commercials are rated as low on relevance and low on civility,and 0 for all other combinations of the sponsoring candidates' commercials.

above the mean). For these individuals, we expect thatthe relevance and civility of the negative advertisementswill only minimally influence their evaluations of the candidates. People with a high tolerance for negativity are lesssensitive to negative information, and we do not expect

variations in the tone and content of negative messagesto alter their impressions of the candidates. For evaluations of incumbents (the top panel in Table 5), the relevance and civility measure is statistically significant in

only one of the models (i.e., overall evaluations). And, for







KIM L. FRIDK1N AND PATRICK J. KENNEY

tolerance (i.e., Table 5). And, this is precisely the case. In

eight of the eight models, the size of the relevance and

civility coefficient is larger in the low-tolerance samplethan in the high-tolerance sample. In fact, the differencesare quite dramatic. In seven of the eight comparisons, therelevance and civility coefficients are over twice as largein the low-tolerance sample, compared with the hightolerance sample.

The results presented in Tables 4 and 5 provide strongsupport for our hypothesis. The analyses, conductedacross four different dependent variables and two sub

populations, are consistent and impressive. People whodo not like uncivil and irrelevant discourse in negativecommunication are more responsive to the variation in

the content and tone of negative commercials. These mes

sages directly influence their assessments of incumbentsand challengers. This finding stands in stark contrast to

those people who are unperturbed by messages presentedin an uncivil manner and focused on irrelevant content.

For people with higher tolerance for negativity, the variance in the relevance and civility of messages has littleinfluence on their evaluations of candidates running forthe U.S. Senate.48

Conclusion

Communication between citizens and candidates dur

ing political campaigns is an essential element of representative democracies. A fundamental aspect of thesediscussions is for candidates to make a case for theircandidacies. This involves disseminating a variety of

messages, including biographical statements about thecandidates, messages intended to build trust with constituents, discussions about the candidates' political philosophy, and statements describing the candidates' policyplans for solving contemporary problems. In addition,candidates need to explain why they will be better representatives than their opponents. Candidates often deliverthese messages by disseminating negative advertisementsaimed at their rivals. This campaign strategy is extremelycommon in the last days of statewide and national elections.

Although negative campaigning is common, demon

strating the impact of negative campaigning has provento be elusive. In this article, we introduce and test a more

sophisticated theory of negative campaigning, exploringthe conditions contributing to the effectiveness of negative messages. In particular, we examine how the rele

vance and civility of negative messages influence citizens'assessments of candidates. The data analyses focus on the

2006 U.S. Senate campaigns and demonstrate that negative messages centered on topics relevant to governing

and disseminated in an uncivil manner (e.g., harsh orshrill language) strongly influence citizens' evaluationsof candidates. Irrelevant messages, regardless of whether

they are presented in a strident or civil manner, have littleimpact on voters' views of the candidates. However, negative advertising is not without risk. When incumbents

stray away from relevant messages and produce and dis

seminate irrelevant and uncivil messages, citizens react

by lowering their evaluations of these incumbents. Challengers, on the other hand, do not face as fierce a backlash

from potential voters.

We also demonstrate that not all citizens are equallyinfluenced by negative campaigning. In particular, the

impact of negative messages is especially strong for citizens who have limited tolerance for attack politics.In contrast, for people with a high tolerance for roughand-tumble campaign rhetoric, negative messages are lessinfluential.

All told, the evidence suggests that the effect of negative information on targeted politicians is not minimal.Rather, the effects are multifaceted, and under some circumstances, substantial. These effects hold up in the face

of stiff ontrols for partisan and ideological attachments.

48Scholars have examined how partisanship and political sophistication condition the impact of negative campaigning. For example,Fridkin and Kenney (2004) find that political novices are more affected by negative political advertising, compared with politicalexperts. We reestimate the analysis in Table 3 for political novicesand political elites, and we find that novices are more responsiveto the variance in relevance and civility. In particular, the rele

vance/incivility coefficient is statistically significant in seven of the

eight equations for novices, but it is statistically significant in onlytwo of the eight tests for experts. However, we contend that tolerance toward negativity is something more than sophistication. AsTable 2 shows, sophistication does not influence people's toleranceof uncivil negative messages. And, while sophistication does signif

icantly influence people's tolerance of irrelevant negative messages,it is not the most important variable, according to the standardizedcoefficients. Researchers have also found that partisanship affectsthe impact of negative advertising, with Independents being moreresponsive to negative appeals than partisans (e.g., Ansolabehereand Iyengar 1997). In our analysis, because of the small number ofIndependents (n =118), it is difficult to examine whether Independents are more responsive to the relevance and civility of negativemessages. However, we compare weaker partisans (Independentsand leaners) and stronger partisans (strong and weak identifiers) intheir responsiveness to the relevance and civility of negative messages and find no differences. In particular, six of the coefficientsfor relevance/civility are statistically significant for weaker partisans and six of the coefficients for relevance/ civility are statisticallysignificant for stronger partisans.








In addition, we have identified these effects in real cam

paigns.While the present article focuses on evaluations

of candidates, we think that the relevance and civilityof negative messages—and people's tolerance for these

messages—may also contribute to the resolution of the

ongoing debate regarding the (de)mobilizing effect of

negative campaigning. Embracing the variance in the content and tone of messages may help explain whether negative messages enhance or depress turnout. We expect that

not all negative messages will demobilize citizens. Instead,

messages focusing on irrelevant material—and presentedin an uncivil manner—may be the most likely type of

message to turn off' voters. In contrast, messages focus

ing on relevant topics and presented in a civil manner

may actually engage citizens and increase participation.In addition, we expect that the impact of these different

messages will depend on people's tolerance for negativecampaigning. In particular, irrelevant and uncivil mes

sages may be more effective at depressing turnout among

people with little tolerance for negative rhetoric. We en

courage researchers to consider the variability in the con

tent and tone of negative messages when exploring how

negative campaigning affects turnout.We believe that this article advances our understand

ing of negative campaigning by embracing the variabilityin the content and tone of negative messages as well asthe variance in people's tolerance for negative messages.However, this article represents a first step. Future workshould explore variance in additional dimensions of cam

paign rhetoric, such as variance in the medium (e.g., In

ternet vs. television advertising), variance in the timingof the negative messages (e.g., early vs. late in the cam

paign), variance in the presence of a counterattack (e.g.,how often, how fierce), and variance in the repetition ofthe message (e.g., how many repeated attacks before effec

tiveness is detected). We believe that all of these avenueswill shed more light on how negative messages shape citizens' attitudes and, ultimately, their choices at the ballot

box.

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