Candidate Evaluation: Race and Gender Flashcards
How do voters differ in their evaluations of male and female candidates?
- Voters will evaluate female candidates relative to the “typical woman” (whom
they hold negative stereotypes towards) and not to another candidate - When forced to apply their evaluations to political leadership, though, voters
will use negative gender stereotypes when evaluating female candidates
Hypotheses
* Gender-Typicality Hypothesis: All else equal, female candidates will
receive more positive belief assessments relative to male candidates.
* Voters will rate women as having more qualifications because they assume a
“typical woman” would not hold these qualifications
* A female politician is more ”exceptional” relative to the typical woman
compared to a male politician to the typical man
* Role-Typicality Hypothesis: All else equal, female candidates will
receive less positive overall evaluations relative to male candidates
when asking voters to consider the ability of a candidate to fill a
political leadership role.
* Stereotypes about what makes a strong political leader favors typical
masculine traits and behaviors
How are voters shaped by both their implicit and explicit attitudes?
Hypotheses
* Voters with negative implicit and explicit attitudes will be less likely to vote for
a female candidate
* Voters with negative implicit attitudes, but more positive explicit attitudes,
will be more moved by candidate quality information than gender
Both implicit and explicit attitudes predict vote choice
* As they get more negative, less likely to vote for a woman
* Those with implicitly negative attitudes but positive explicit attitudes
care most about candidate quality, not gender
- Explicit attitudes are probably more important in voting than implicit
ones - Candidate quality also matters for perceptions of candidates
How can other candidate traits impact how voters view candidates?
All else equal, female candidates will
receive more positive belief assessments relative to male candidates.
* Voters will rate women as having more qualifications because they assume a
“typical woman” would not hold these qualifications
* A female politician is more ”exceptional” relative to the typical woman
compared to a male politician to the typical man
On average, subjects rated the female candidate as having more skills
than the male candidate
* Supports the Gender-Typicality hypothesis
How do racial attitudes shape voting decisions? How do voters weigh their own racial identity versus their racial attitudes when making voting decisions?
racial and immigration attitudes and Latino growth are a
much stronger predictor of vote switching than economic attitudes or
conditions
* Particularly stronger for the white working-class with Latino growth
What best explains why voters voted for Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016?
In 2012, both racial
resentment and a strong
white identity made a voter
less likely to vote for Obama
Republican primary voters
who were higher in racial
resentment and white
identity were more likely
to support Trump
* But racial resentment was
stronger
In the 2016 general election,
white identity was not predictive
of voting for Trump, but racial
resentment was
* This pattern also persists in
Trump’s approval rating
* White identity doesn’t matter, but
racial resentment does
White identity seemed to matter during Obama’s re-election, but less
so in future elections
* Racial resentment seems to better explain support for Donald Trump
* But, it’s possible white identity could still matter for elections where
there is a black candidate
