Beliefs about initiative and change in the 1992 presidential election
Abstract
Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Ross Perot during the 1992 Presidential election voiced distinct beliefs about human initiative and change. Their supporters had corresponding beliefs. Study 1 measured the beliefs about the sources of initiative and the course of change of the three constituencies through the questionnaire responses of 527 adult travelers at the Philadelphia airport. Study 2 blindly content analyzed campaign speeches and interviews of the candidates themselves and found parallel beliefs. We manipulated the rhetoric about initiative without changing the substance of candidate speeches in Study 3 and changed voter preferences. This suggests that candidates' beliefs about initiative and change directly attract voters with the corresponding beliefs.
Subject Area
Educational psychology|Political science|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Miller, Lisa Friedman, "Beliefs about initiative and change in the 1992 presidential election" (1994). Dissertations available from ProQuest. AAI9427643.
https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI9427643