Abstract:
Various branches of the literature suggest that exposure to the high-status appearances and lifestyles of politicians in contemporary \"diploma democracies\" affects the attitudes and behavior of less-educated citizens because it confronts them with their lower status in the political domain. Informed by this, we theorize that such exposure inspires docility (a lower subjective social status, weaker feelings of political entitlement) and revolt (anger, more support for aggression against government). To investigate this, we conducted an original, pre-registered, video-vignette survey experiment among a representative sample of the Dutch population. While our findings likely generalize to other liberal democracies, the Dutch context is suitable to test our theorizing because low-status and high-status appearances and lifestyles are found across the political arena, irrespective of politicians\' substantive positions or use of populist rhetoric. Each less-educated respondent (n = 1390) was presented with a professionally produced video of an actor playing the part of a fictitious politician. This politician signaled either a low or a high status via his appearance and lifestyle. The potentially confounding factors of his substantive positions and populist rhetoric were randomized and controlled for. We find that exposure to the high-status politician increased less-educated citizens\' support for aggression against the government. Through exploratory analyses, we assess how the responses of docility and revolt are interrelated, and how they are shaped by less-educated citizens\' economic status.
摘要:
文献的各个分支表明,在当代“文凭民主国家”中,政治家的高地位外表和生活方式会影响受教育程度较低的公民的态度和行为,因为这会使他们在政治领域的地位较低。由此被告知,我们认为,这种暴露激发了温顺(较低的主观社会地位,较弱的政治权利感)和反抗(愤怒,更多支持侵略政府)。为了调查这一点,我们进行了原创,预注册,在荷兰人口的代表性样本中进行视频插图调查实验。虽然我们的发现可能会推广到其他自由民主国家,荷兰的背景适合测试我们的理论,因为在整个政治舞台上都发现了低地位和高地位的外表和生活方式,无论政客的实质性立场或使用民粹主义言论。每个受教育程度较低的受访者(n=1390)都会收到一个专业制作的视频,其中有一个演员扮演一个虚构的政治家的角色。这位政客通过他的外表和生活方式暗示了低或高的地位。他的实质性立场和民粹主义言论的潜在混淆因素是随机和控制的。我们发现,接触高地位的政治家增加了受教育程度较低的公民对侵略政府的支持。通过探索性分析,我们评估顺从和反抗的反应是如何相互关联的,以及受教育程度较低的公民如何塑造他们的经济地位。