Scandal-ridden campaigns: the relationship between cognitive load and candidate evaluation

• Published in: The Social science journal (Fort Collins) Vol. ahead-of-print; no. ahead-of-print; pp. 1 - 18
• Main Authors: Nawara, Steven P., Bailey, Mandi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 06.05.2021
• Subjects: cognitive overload; Scandal; social media; survey experiment
• ISSN: 0362-3319; 1873-5355
• DOI: 10.1080/03623319.2021.1884780

Scandal has been shown to affect politicians' fortunes in inconsistent ways, with some suffering severe consequences from the voters while others are able to weather multiple scandals with seemingly few adverse effects. We look to cognitive load theory to explain how voters react to politicians with varying levels of scandal. While we generally expect a single scandal to resonate with voters, as candidates become embroiled in additional scandals, the cognitive load required to process such information becomes greater and learning is inhibited. As a result, cognitive load theory would lead to the expectation that a politician facing many scandals will not necessarily be held in a lower standing by voters than a candidate facing a single scandal. We test our hypotheses in an experiment chronicling a fictitious congressional campaign on social media and varying the amount of scandal surrounding a candidate, as well as their party affiliation. We find support for our expectations. While participants are less likely to vote for a candidate facing scandal than a non-scandalized candidate, there does not appear to be any further electoral or evaluative penalty for candidates involved in many scandals. This finding is troubling from a perspective of democratic accountability, as it suggests voters are rather poor at incorporating additional information into their evaluations and, as a result, candidates are generally not further sanctioned by additional controversies.