This study asks whether perceived threats to group social status increase electoral support for conservative candidates, and whether that effect depends on candidate issue positions or voters’ party loyalty. Using a joint experimental design that combined vignette and conjoint elements, the authors expose respondents to status-threat messaging and then ask them to choose between hypothetical candidates differing on issue positions and party. The contribution is a causal test of status threat’s effect on candidate choice among White American respondents, assessed alongside strong influences from issue positions and partisanship.
joint vignette–conjoint experiment focus on candidate issue positions tests role of partisanship
Data and methods
The authors run a combined vignette and conjoint survey experiment with White American respondents. Participants were randomly assigned to receive status-threat communication before making choices among hypothetical candidates whose attributes varied in conservatism across policy issues and in party affiliation. The design is intended to identify whether experimentally induced status threat shifts candidate preferences, while conjoint attributes capture the independent effects of issue positions and party cues.
Main findings
The study reports that candidates’ issue positions and party labels had large effects on respondents’ choices, while the experimentally induced status threat produced very little change in support for conservative candidates. The abstract emphasizes the null or near-null effect of status threat relative to the sizable effects of issues and partisanship.
- Large effects: candidates’ issue positions and partisanship.
- Small or negligible effect: status-threat communication on candidate support.
