The Effects of Nominating Conventions, Elections, and Reference Group Identification upon the Perception of Political Figures

• Published in: Human relations (New York) 1965-01, Vol.18 (3), p.217-230
• Main Authors: Raven, Bertram H, Gallo, Philip S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Convention/Conventions/Conventional/ Conventionality/ Conventionalist/ Conventionalism; Election/Elections; Perception/Perceptions/Perceptual/ Perceptivity/ Perceive/ Perceived; Political/Politically/ Politicalization (see also Politics); Reference/References/Referent/ Referents
• ISSN: 0018-7267
• DOI: 10.1177/001872676501800302

A study of the application of balance & congruity principles to understand the ways in which individuals alter their perception of pol'al figures as the result of nominating conventions & elections. A variation of the Semantic Diff'ial was utilized in measuring evaluations of pol'al figures. In the 1st study undergraduates were asked to rate prominent pol'al candidates before & after the nominating conventions of the major pol'al parties. It was expected that members of each pol'al party would use their own party as a positive reference group. They should also use the opposing party as a negative reference group, evaluating the opposing cnadidate more negatively as soon as he is nominated. The resulting polarizing effect was in fact observed, with the 2 parties becoming more divergent in evaluation of Kennedy, immediately after the conventions. Such an effect was not apparent re evaluation of Nixon. The polarizing should continue up to the point of the election, at which time the parties would be esp divergent in their evaluation of the candidates. The elections should then result in a depolarizing effect with the positive & negative referent influence of the 2 parties being reduced in favor of the larger reference-the total electorate. In addition, the members of the losing party would be faced with a fait accompli, in the election of the opposing candidate. Evidence collected from students, who evaluated the candidates just before, immediately after, & several weeks after the election, supported the above prediction. The major predicted changes occurred 1 day after the election. The greatest change toward greater acceptability occurred in the evaluation of the winning candidate by the losing party. S. Schwartz.