Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Favorable evaluations based on evaluations of personality and party bonds often operate as a protective shield for political candidates (Fenno 1978; Capelos 2002). Little is known however about the intersection of favorable evaluations based on party bonds with citizens’ emotional reactions of anxiety generated in political campaign settings. Anxiety as a reaction to political events has distinct implications for political decision making, by promoting careful processing of available information. Absence of anxiety is associated with heuristic processing (Marcus 2000). In this paper, I study the way in which anxiety affects the way citizens evaluate leaders in light of political scandals and also examine the structural and political determinants of anxiety and aversion in a campaign setting. I report the results of a two-stage experimental study which determines whether anxiety blocks or conditions the impact of favorable party bonds on evaluations of scandal impact. The results show that anxious citizens follow a different decision making path for assessments of responsibility in comparison to their non-anxious counterparts, and against expectation make use of motivational consideration generated by party bonds.

Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: This study investigated the determination of blame and responsibility in a fatal child neglect scenario by varying parent (i.e., mother or father) and caregiving responsibility (i.e., primary or non-primary). Participants read a newspaper article depicting a story about a child who died after being left unattended in a vehicle and assessed the amount of blame and responsibility attributed to each parent. Overall, results revealed a significant interaction such the mother who violated stereotypes by not being the primary caregiver for her child was deemed more responsible and blameworthy than any other condition for the child’s death. Courtroom implications are discussed.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper examines how voters attribute credit and blame to governments for policy success and policy failure, and how this affects their party support. We show that unpopular governments tend to carry with them a ‘forked tail’ effect that leads voters to attribute less responsibility to perceived successful policy outcomes, and more responsibility to outcomes that are perceived to be unsuccessful. Conversely popular governments tend to have a ‘golden halo’ effect that leads voters to give them extra credit for successful outcomes. Using panel data from Britain between 1997-01 and Ireland between 2002-06, we show that changes to the governing party, in Britain, and changes to the perceived success of policy outcomes, in Ireland, led to dramatic shifts in how these tail and halo effects operated. Following from this, and modelling attribution, we find that it is the interaction between partisanship and evaluation of performance that is most important. We also argue that partisanship will serve to resolve incongruities between party support and policy evaluation through selective attribution. In this way favoured parties are not blamed for policy failures and less favoured ones are not credited with policy success. We go on to show how attributions affected defections from Labour over the 1997-2001 election cycle in Britain, and defections from the Fianna Fáil/ Progressive Democrat coalition after the 2002 election in Ireland. Using models of vote switching and controlling partisanship to minimize endogeneity problems, we find that with attribution of responsibility evaluations of government performance have a much greater effect on vote intention.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: ABSTRACT
This paper examines how offenders interact with a state parole board. Using conversation analysis, I examine the excuses and justifications offenders employ as they attempt to achieve parole release. The vocabularies of motive offenders rely on in their appeals to the board materialize not as individual assertions that are unquestiongly accepted. Rather, the socially approved vocabularies are generated and altered in real time interaction. Analyzing regular parole and parole violation hearings, I provide illustrations of how offenders and the parole board negotiate vocabularies of motive (excuses and justifications) throughout the parole hearing.