Abstract

Many of the most iconic political ads in history draw heavily on what social psychologists have termed “Moral Foundations.” Moral foundations are deeply held intuitions regarding right and wrong that are valued cross culturally. Previous work has established that partisans are particularly swayed by appeals referencing specific Moral Foundations. Scholars have argued that partisans are relating to moral appeals on an emotional level. Here an alternative theory is presented: rather than reacting emotionally to moral frames, it is instead argued that partisans are assigning a party label to an otherwise ambiguous message based on the frame. This party label is then used as a shortcut in evaluation. It is also theorized that this effect will be particularly noticeable in people who strongly socially identify with their political party. Testing the theory via a survey experiment, partial support for the argument is discovered. In Democrats, strong evidence of a moral stereotype is found. In Republicans, evidence of the stereotype is less clear. In both groups, the moral frame serves as a shortcut in candidate evaluation, as hypothesized. Contrary to the theory presented, however, strength of partisan identification has little influence on use of a partisan stereotype. The findings have implications for campaign strategy and suggest avenues for future research.

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