By Chad Lampe, Kentucky Public Radio
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wuky/local-wuky-980869.mp3
MURRAY, Ky. – The fiery political stump speeches of the Fancy Farm picnic this weekend typically set the tone for the rest of the campaign season. Candidates often maintain elements of those messages through campaign commercials and local appearances. Kentucky Public Radio's Chad Lampe speaks with Murray State Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Ian Norris about the impetus behind certain types of campaign messaging and its impact on the electorate.
CHAD LAMPE: The goal of political discourse during the Fancy Farm picnic almost seems to vilify each opponent in one way or another. How do people tend to receive messages vilifying a political candidate?
IAN NORRIS: There's some very recent research that demonstrates it can be quite effective. People who are asked to express their political support in terms of opposition to the candidate they don't favor actually express stronger support for the candidate that they do favor.
LAMPE: So we're saying that if you were a democrat and you favor Steve Beshear, you're more likely to voice your support of Steve Beshear by saying something negative about [republican] David Williams?
NORRIS: Yes, and then in fact if you do express negative attitudes towards David Williams, that there is a causal relationship between the expression of negative attitudes toward the opposition candidate and increased support for the candidate that you do favor. LAMPE: Does messaging have anything to do with this as far as how these supporters may perceive the messages that they receive about these candidates?
NORRIS: There seems to be some kind of intuitive awareness on the part of politicians that if they can get voters to line up in opposition to the alternative candidate, that that in fact will more greatly support their cause than if they were simply to get voters to line up with them.
LAMPE: You've said that some research shows that people tend to tune out personal attacks at least when they are paying attention to the political message.
NORRIS: This tendency for support framed in terms of opposition to the alternative, so to speak, is part of a more general phenomenon that people are more sensitive to negative information in general. However that can actually make people angry when people have reason to believe that candidates really should be discussing the issues. In that case, the negative, the attack approach can actually be seen as a distraction on the part of the candidate and make it appear to the voter that the candidate either doesn't know or doesn't have any interest in dealing with the issues that do matter to the voters."
LAMPE: Voter turnout is so low that it sounds like an easy ball to pitch.
NORRIS: There is one case in which the vilification approach will nearly always work, and that's the case in which the villain, the political opponent, is painted as a moral enemy. Moral arguments go to our psychological core. They seep in underneath the rational mind and they grab our emotions.
That was Dr. Ian Norris, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Murray State University speaking with Kentucky Public Radio's Chad Lampe. Fancy Farm kicks off Saturday in Graves County.