Field experiment evidence of substantive, attributional, and behavioral persuasion by members of Congress in online town halls.

ABSTRACT: Do leaders persuade? Social scientists have long studied the relationship between elite behavior and mass opinion. However, there is surprisingly little evidence regarding direct persuasion by leaders. Here we show that political leaders can persuade their constituents directly on three dimensions: substantive attitudes regarding policy issues, attributions regarding the leaders' qualities, and subsequent voting behavior. We ran two randomized controlled field experiments testing the causal effects of directly interacting with a sitting politician. Our experiments consist of 20 online town hall meetings with members of Congress conducted in 2006 and 2008. Study 1 examined 19 small meetings with members of the House of Representatives (average 20 participants per town hall). Study 2 examine

SUBMITTER: Minozzi W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4386373 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature