Ledgerwood and her colleagues have also found that a negative frame is much more persistent, or “stickier,” than a positive one. If you come at an issue negatively, but are later reminded of the policy’s positive aspects, you will still think it’s a bust. And if you start out thinking favorably about the policy, but are reminded of its downsides, your positive perception will be swept away and a negative one will take its place.
The beauty of negative attacks — from a campaign standpoint — is that they influence everyone. Even a candidate’s supporters will be affected by negative attacks, Ledgerwood and her collaborators have found. Once a negative idea has been planted, it’s very hard to shake.
Looking at correlations between the volume of negative ads and the vote shares achieved by U.S. Senate candidates in 2010 and 2012, the researchers found that “while positive political advertising does not affect two-party vote share, negative political advertising has a significant positive effect on two-party vote shares.”
So if we don’t like negative ads and even perhaps suspect they contribute to political malaise, why are they increasingly dominating candidates’ strategies?
The answer is simple: They work. And they work very well. Gingrich’s drop in polls in Iowa last month was no accident – it was choreographed by negative advertising. . . .
. . . Our brains process information both consciously and non-consciously. When we pay attention to a message we are engaged in active message processing. When we are distracted or not paying attention we may nonetheless passively receive information. There is some evidence that negative messages may be more likely than positive ones to passively register. They “stick” for several reasons.
First, one of the most important contributors to their success may be the negativity bias. Negative information is more memorable than positive – just think how clearly you remember an insult.
Second, negative ads are more complex than positive ones. A positive message that talks about the sponsoring candidate’s voting record, for example, is simple and straightforward. Every negative ad has at least an implied comparison. If Mitt Romney is “not a true conservative,” then by implication the candidate sponsoring the ad is saying he or she is a true conservative. This complexity can cause us to process the information more slowly and with somewhat more attentiveness.
From what I’m reading if may have some positive effect on voter share and possibly a negative effect on voter turnout. And that positive messages have have a positive effect on turnout. Isn’t that the claim meme?
And, historically, Democrats win with greater turnout. At least as far as I’m aware.
Disclaimer: I’ve only spent 20 minutes on this. A properly measured response would take longer.
The researchers found that, in the 2000 election, allowing only positive ads would have increased overall voter turnout from 50.4 percent to 52.4 percent. Meanwhile, airing only negative ads would have decreased turnout to 48.8 percent. The gap between the all-positive and all-negative scenarios was about 10 million voters.
“That’s pretty big,” Gordon says. “It does suggest that negative ads might have a detrimental effect” on election participation.
This 2007 meta analysis is the most recent meta analysis I could find. It throws into question both claims, that negative ad have a positive effect on voter and negative effect on turnout. There’s been a lot of studies since then, but this still gets cited.
The conventional wisdom about negative political campaigning holds that it works, i.e., it has the consequences its practitioners intend. Many observers also fear that negative campaigning has unintended but detrimental effects on the political system itself. An earlier meta-analytic assessment of the relevant literature found no reliable evidence for these claims, but since then the research literature has more than doubled in size and has greatly improved in quality. We reexamine this literature and find that the major conclusions from the earlier meta-analysis still hold. All told, the research literature does not bear out the idea that negative campaigning is an effective means of winning votes, even though it tends to be more memorable and stimulate knowledge about the campaign. Nor is there any reliable evidence that negative campaigning depresses voter turnout, though it does slightly lower feelings of political efficacy, trust in government, and possibly overall public mood.
Negative advertising is frequent in electoral campaigns, despite its ambiguous effectiveness: Negativity may reduce voters’ evaluation of the targeted politician but may have a backlash effect for the attacker. We study the effect of negative advertising in electoral races with more than two candidates with a large‐scale field experiment during an electoral campaign for mayor in Italy and a survey experiment in a fictitious mayoral campaign. In our field experiment, we find a strong, positive spillover effect on the third main candidate (neither the target nor the attacker). This effect is confirmed in our survey experiment, which creates a controlled environment with no ideological components or strategic voting. The negative ad has no impact on the targeted incumbent, has a sizable backlash effect on the attacker, and largely benefits the idle candidate. The attacker is perceived as less cooperative, less likely to lead a successful government, and more ideologically extreme.
ok, can I see the data?
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-negative-campaigning-works-and-how-fight-it
https://goizueta.emory.edu/research-spotlight/playing-dirty-2020-does-negative-advertising-actually-work-elections
https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/when-campaign-ads-go-low-it-often-works/
https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/02/opinion/lariscy-negative-ads/index.html
From what I’m reading if may have some positive effect on voter share and possibly a negative effect on voter turnout. And that positive messages have have a positive effect on turnout. Isn’t that the claim meme?
And, historically, Democrats win with greater turnout. At least as far as I’m aware.
Disclaimer: I’ve only spent 20 minutes on this. A properly measured response would take longer.
References
How Much Do Campaign Ads Matter?
The Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Reassessment
This 2007 meta analysis is the most recent meta analysis I could find. It throws into question both claims, that negative ad have a positive effect on voter and negative effect on turnout. There’s been a lot of studies since then, but this still gets cited.
Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning