Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-rvxtl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-10T04:47:59.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cueing God: Religious Cues and Voter Support

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2014

Bryan McLaughlin  and
David Wise
Bryan McLaughlin*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
David Wise
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Bryan McLaughlin, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 821 University Ave., 5115 Vilas Hall, Madison, WI 53706. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scholars contend that correctly applying religious cues is crucial to winning political elections. This article examines the effect of general religious cues by conducting an experiment on a national sample (N = 520). Through the use of a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage, we examine how subtle and overt religious cues interact with citizen religiosity to affect political evaluations. The findings demonstrate that politicians who use overt religious cues run the risk of alienating a large portion of potential voters. Religious cues do, however, appear to become more effective as citizens become more religious. We also find some evidence that overt religious cues are more polarizing than subtle religious cues. This article provides a foundation from which to more thoroughly consider how general religious cues can affect political outcomes and how these cues may interact with other factors.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 366 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Albertson, Bethany. 2011. “Religious Appeals and Implicit Attitudes.” Political Psychology 32:109–130.Google Scholar
Bernisky, Adam, Huber, Gregory, and Lenz, Gabriel. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechnical Turk.” Political Analysis 20:251–368.Google Scholar
Bernisky, Adam, and Mendelberg, Tali. 2005. “The Indirect Effects of Discredited Stereotypes in Judgments of Jewish Leaders.” American Journal of Political Science 49:845–864.Google Scholar
Bolce, Louis, and De Maio, Gerald. 1999. “The Anti-Christian Fundamentalist Factor in Contemporary Politics.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 63:508–542.Google Scholar
Braman, Eileen, and Sinno, Addulkader. 2009. “An Experimental Investigation of Causal Attributions for the Political Behavior of Muslim Candidates: Can a Muslim Represent You?” Politics and Religion 2:247–276.Google Scholar
Buhrmester, Muhrmester, Kwang, Tracy, and Gosling, Samuel. 2011. “Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6:3–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calfano, Brian R., and Djupe, Paul A.. 2009. “God Talk: Religious Cues and Electoral Support.” Political Research Quarterly 62:329–339.Google Scholar
Calfano, Brian R., and Djupe, Paul A.. 2011. “Not In His Image: The Moderating Effect of Gender on Religious Appeals.” Politics and Religion 4:338–354.Google Scholar
Campbell, David, Green, John, and Layman, Geoffrey. 2011. “The Party Faithful: Partisan Images, Candidate Religion, and the Electoral Impact of Party Identification.” American Journal of Political Science 55:42–58.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul, Evans, John, and Bryson, Bethany. 1996. “Have American's Social Attitudes Become More Polarized?” American Journal of Sociology 102:690–755.Google Scholar
Djupe, Paul A., and Calfano, Brian R.. 2009. “Justification Not by Faith Alone: Clergy Generating Trust And Certainty by Revealing Thought.” Politics and Religions 2:1–30.Google Scholar
Djupe, Paul A., and Gwiasda, Gregory W.. 2010. “Evangelizing the Environment: Decision Process Effects in Political Persuasion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49:73–86.Google Scholar
Domke, David, and Coe, Kevin. 2008. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, Harry, and Francis, Leslie. 1996. “Measuring Christian Fundamentalist Belief among 11–15 Year Old Adolescents in Scotland.” In Research in Religious Education, eds. Francis, L.J. & Campbell, W.S.. Leominster: Fowler Wright, 249–255.Google Scholar
Guth, James, Kellstedt, Lyman, Smidt, Corwin, and Green, John. 2006. “Religious Influences in the 2004 Presidential Election.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36:223–242.Google Scholar
Hunter, James Davidson. 1991. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Control The Family, Art, Education, Law and Politics in America. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lambert, F. 2008. Religion in American Politics. New Jersey, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layman, Geoffrey, and Carmines, Edward. 1997. “Cultural Conflict in American Politics: Religious Traditionalism, Postmaterialism, and U.S. Political Behavior.” The Journal of Politics 59:751–777.Google Scholar
Mason, Winter, and Suri, Siddharth. 2011. “Conducting Behavioral Research on Amazon's Mechanical Turk.” Behavior Research methods 44:1–23.Google Scholar
McDermott, Monika. 1998. “Race and Gender Cues in Low-Information Elections.” Political Research Quarterly 51:895–918.Google Scholar
McDermott, Monika. 2007. “Voting for Catholic Candidates: The Evolution of a Stereotype.” Social Science Quarterly 88:953–969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, Monika. 2009. “Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support for Evangelical Candidates.” Political Research Quarterly 62:340–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McTague, John Michael, and Layman, Geoffery. 2009. “Religion, Parties, and Voting Behavior: A Political Explanation for Religious Influence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics, eds. Smidt, Corwin, Kellstedt, Lyman, and Guth, James. New York, NY: Oxford university press, 330–370.Google Scholar
Paolacci, Gabriele, Changler, Jesse, and Ipeirotis, Panagiotis. 2010. “Running Experiments on Amazon's Mechanical Turk.” Judgment and Decision Making 5:411–419.Google Scholar
Pew. 2012. Forum on Religion and Public Life. Google Scholar
Pieper, Andrew. 2011. “Flouting Faith? Religious Hostility and the American Left, 1977–2000.” American Politics Research 39:754–778.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel. 1991. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert, and Campbell, David. 2010. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York, NY. Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Sheets, Penelope, Domke, David, and Greenwald, Anthony. 2011. “God and Country: The Partisan Psychology of the Presidency, Religion, and Nation.” Political Psychology 32:459–484.Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney, and Finke, Roger. 2000. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Los Angles, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Valentino, Nicholas. 1999. “Crime News and the Priming of Racial Attitudes during Evaluations of the President.” Public Opinion Quarterly 63:293–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wald, Kenneth, and Calhoun-Brown, Allison. 2011. Religion and Politics in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Weaver, Velsa. 2012. “The Electoral Consequences of Skin Color: The “Hidden” Side of Race in Politics.” Political Behavior 34:159–192.Google Scholar
Weber, Christopher, and Thornton, Matt. 2012. “Courting Christians: How Political Candidates Prime Religious Considerations in Campaign Ads.” The Journal of Politics 74:400–413.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, Robert. 1998. The Restructuring of American Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar