The Minnesota Multi-Investigator 2012 Presidential Election Panel Study
Philip G. Chen
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorJacob Appleby
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Eugene Borgida
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eugene Borgida, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]], or Howard Lavine, Department of Political Science, 1414 Social Sciences Building, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]].Search for more papers by this authorTimothy H. Callaghan
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorPierce Ekstrom
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorChristina E. Farhart
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorElizabeth Housholder
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorHannah Kim
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorAleksander Ksiazkiewicz
Department of Political Science, Rice University
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Howard Lavine
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eugene Borgida, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]], or Howard Lavine, Department of Political Science, 1414 Social Sciences Building, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]].Search for more papers by this authorMatthew D. Luttig
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorRuchika Mohanty
Department of Economics, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorAaron Rosenthal
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorGeoff Sheagley
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Search for more papers by this authorBrianna A. Smith
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorJoseph A. Vitriol
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorAllison Williams
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorPhilip G. Chen
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorJacob Appleby
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Eugene Borgida
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eugene Borgida, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]], or Howard Lavine, Department of Political Science, 1414 Social Sciences Building, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]].Search for more papers by this authorTimothy H. Callaghan
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorPierce Ekstrom
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorChristina E. Farhart
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorElizabeth Housholder
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorHannah Kim
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorAleksander Ksiazkiewicz
Department of Political Science, Rice University
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Howard Lavine
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eugene Borgida, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]], or Howard Lavine, Department of Political Science, 1414 Social Sciences Building, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 [e-mail: [email protected]].Search for more papers by this authorMatthew D. Luttig
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorRuchika Mohanty
Department of Economics, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorAaron Rosenthal
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorGeoff Sheagley
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Search for more papers by this authorBrianna A. Smith
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorJoseph A. Vitriol
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorAllison Williams
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
Search for more papers by this authorWe are grateful to the Center for the Study of Political Psychology at the University of Minnesota, and especially to Center director Joanne Miller, for the Center's generous financial support of the multi-investigator 2012 Presidential election panel study.
We also would like to extend our collective gratitude to Tom Lindsay and Andrew Sell in the Office of Technology, College of Liberal Arts, for their diligent and creative programming efforts on behalf of this project; we simply would not have been able to pull off this effort in such a short time frame without their assistance. We also are grateful to our colleague, Chris Federico, for his helpful statistical advice.
Abstract
In an analysis of the 2012 presidential election, we sought to optimize two key desiderata in capturing campaign effects: establishing causality and measuring dynamic (i.e., intraindividual) change over time. We first report the results of three survey-experiments embedded within a three-wave survey panel design. Each experiment was focused on a substantive area of electoral concern. Our results suggest, among other findings, that retrospective evaluations exerted a stronger influence on vote choice in the referendum (vs. the choice) frame; that among White respondents, racial animosity strongly predicted economic evaluations for knowledgeable Republicans who were led to believe that positive economic developments were the result of actions taken by the Obama administration; and that information-seeking bias is a contingent phenomenon, one depending jointly on the opportunity and motivation to selectively tune in to congenial information. Lastly, we demonstrate how the panel design also allowed us to (1) examine the reliability and stability of a variety of election-related implicit attitudes, and to assess their impact on candidate evaluation; and (2) determine the causal impact of perceptions of candidates’ traits and respondents’ policy preferences on electoral preferences, and vice versa, an area of research long plagued by concerns about endogeneity.
Supporting Information
Disclaimer: Supplementary materials have been peer-reviewed but not copyedited.
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| asap12041-sup-0001-SupMat.docx198.1 KB | Online Appendix: WAVES ONE, TWO, AND THREE (Items appear in order that respondents viewed them). |
Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
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