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Hardwired to attack: Candidates' personality traits and negative campaigning in three European countries
[journal article]
Abstract A growing body of studies shows that the reasons for competing candidates to "go negative" on their opponents during elections - that is, attacking their opponents instead of promoting their own programs or ideas stem from strategic considerations. Yet, existing research has, at this stage, failed t... view more
A growing body of studies shows that the reasons for competing candidates to "go negative" on their opponents during elections - that is, attacking their opponents instead of promoting their own programs or ideas stem from strategic considerations. Yet, existing research has, at this stage, failed to assess whether candidates’ personality traits also play a role. In this article, we bridge the gap between existing work in political psychology and political communication and study to what extent the personality traits of competing candidates are linked with their use of negative campaigning strategies. We rely on candidate survey data for recent elections in three countries - Germany (2017), Switzerland (2019), and Finland (2019). The data includes self-reported measures for candidates' "Big Five" personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness) and the the use of attacks towards their opponents during the campaign. Controlling for the usual suspects driving the use of negative campaigning we show that this latter is associated with low agreeableness and (marginally) with high extraversion and low conscientiousness. The role of personality for the focus of an attack (issue vs. character attacks) is somewhat less clear-cut. All in all, kinder and more stable candidates tend to go less negative; when they do, they tend to stay away from character-based attacks and somehow focus on issues.... view less
Keywords
Federal Republic of Germany; Switzerland; Finland; election campaign; candidacy; personality; campaign; political communication
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
candidate personality; Big Five; negative campaigning; issue attacks; character attacks; comparative political communication; Kandidatenstudie (GLES 2017) (ZA6814)
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 772-797
Journal
Acta Politica, 57 (2022) 4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-021-00222-7
ISSN
1741-1416
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed