Page 119 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

112 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Finkenauer, and Vohs (2001) stated in the title of their article, “Bad is
stronger than good.” Negative information receives more processing and
contributes more strongly to the final impression or attitude developed by
an individual than does positive information. Hence, positive and negative
opinions on political candidates or parties cannot be valued equally.
Negative opinions are more effective in discouraging voters than positive
opinions are in encouraging them. This “negativity effect” means that
when comparing negative stimuli and positive stimuli of the same inten-
sity on behavior, affect, and cognitive representations of evaluated objects,
the negative stimuli have a greater impact (Skowronski & Carlston, 1989).
This “negativity effect” is clearly visible in the research undertaken by
Kernell (1977). He observed that during the presidential campaigns of
1946–1966, positive and negative opinions of the president did not have
equal impacts on behavior; that is, disapproval had a stronger effect on
turnout and voter choice than approval.
This observation inspired Bizer and Petty (2005) to conduct experi-
mental research to prove that framing an attitude negatively leads to greater
resistance to persuasion than framing the same relative preference posi-
tively. Their research has opened a vista for developing a strategy to in-
crease the persuasive appeal of political messages; one can intuitively use
the strategy of supporting one’s candidate—that is, sending messages that
strengthen the candidate’s image among supporters. At the same time, one
can provide supportive voters with messages that will influence them to
oppose the counter-candidate. These are two distinct ways of looking at
the same situation. One can create an image of support for one’s own can-
didate by framing an attitude in the positive or create a discouraging image
of the counter-candidate by framing an attitude in the negative. Which of
these styles of framing will lead to increased resistance of voters’ attitudes
to an attack against the politician they support? Bizer and Petty (2005)
demonstrated that thinking of an attitude in terms of opposition rather
than in terms of support is sufficient to enhance the resistance of that
attitude.
This complex state of affairs, in which persuasive appeal is weakened in
some circumstances and attitudinal resistance is enhanced in others, can be
easily illustrated by an example from the American presidential election of
2004. Political advertisements for George W. Bush strove either to strengthen
the image of the candidate by communicating to Bush supporters a positive
image of their candidate or to create a negative image of the counter-candi-
date, John Kerry. In the first instance voters could identify themselves as
“Bush supporters,” whereas in the latter case they became “Kerry opposers.”
In keeping with the negativity effect principle, one can assume that Bush