In the meantime, psychologists and political scientists are studying campaign ads and coming up with surprising results - finding, for example, that negative ads might create more thoughtful voters than positive ones, and that reminders of children or contagion can push otherwise liberal voters to endorse more conservative views. “Both sides are looking for an edge, and more rigorous science leads to more efficient campaigning,” he says. “Consultants obviously have good intuition, especially if they are experienced, and some of them even pay attention to the psychology and political science literature, but I think they are the minority,” says Ted Brader, PhD, a political psychology professor at the University of Michigan.īut increasingly, smart campaign consultants are reading studies and even collaborating with researchers, says Donald Green, PhD, a political science professor at Columbia University who collaborated with the 2006 Rick Perry gubernatorial campaign in Texas to conduct groundbreaking studies of political advertising. However, they rarely pay attention to burgeoning research by psychologists and other social scientists who are exploring whether the images and emotions evoked by campaign ads actually sway voters, researchers say. With this much money on the line, you might assume that media consultants know what works and what doesn’t.
Campaigns will spend upward of $3 billion on broadcast television ads for the 2012 presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections, a record-breaking amount, according to Moody’s Investment Services. Tired of political ads? The positive ones with unfurling flags and smiling children? The negative ones with grainy images of opponents? Well, gird yourself.
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