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Online Tallies and the Context of Politics: How Online Tallies Make Dominant Candidates Appear Competent in Contexts of Conflict

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  • Lasse Laustsen
  • Michael Bang Petersen

Abstract

In this article, we extend the classical notion of online tallies to shed light on the psychology underlying the rapid emergence of dominant political leaders. Predicated on two population‐based panel surveys with embedded experiments, we demonstrate that citizens (1) store extremely durable tallies of candidate personalities in their long‐term memory and (2) retrieve different tallies depending on the context. In particular, we predict and demonstrate that when contexts become more conflict‐ridden, candidate evaluations rapidly shift from being negatively to positively associated with online impressions of candidate dominance. Although the notion of online tallies was originally proposed as an explanation of why citizens are able to vote for candidates on the basis of policy agreement, we demonstrate how the existence of context‐sensitive online tallies can favor dominant candidates, even if the candidate is otherwise unappealing or does not share policy views with citizens on key issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Lasse Laustsen & Michael Bang Petersen, 2020. "Online Tallies and the Context of Politics: How Online Tallies Make Dominant Candidates Appear Competent in Contexts of Conflict," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 240-255, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:64:y:2020:i:2:p:240-255
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12490
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    1. Markus, Gregory B., 1982. "Political Attitudes during an Election Year: A Report on the 1980 NES Panel Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(3), pages 538-560, September.
    2. Danny Hayes, 2005. "Candidate Qualities through a Partisan Lens: A Theory of Trait Ownership," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 908-923, October.
    3. Lodge, Milton & Steenbergen, Marco R. & Brau, Shawn, 1995. "The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 309-326, June.
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    1. Alrababah, Ala & Casalis, Marine & Masterson, Daniel & Hangartner, Dominik & Wehrli, & Weinstein, Jeremy, 2023. "Reducing Attrition in Phone-based Panel Surveys: A Web Application to Facilitate Best Practices and Semi-Automate Survey Workflow," OSF Preprints gyz3h, Center for Open Science.

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