Why smear campaigns work

But he adds that he was surprised by the magnitude of this effect in his experiments. He plans to use upcoming elections to look at ways to counter the effect, for example, by reminding people of similarities they have with a candidate.

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Rodrigo Mundaca HRD. Environmental Rights. Situation of Women Human Rights Defenders. Global Analysis Blog 22 October by Emma Achilli. Human Rights Self-Determination. In other words, our brains are hard-wired to seek out and remember negative information. The beauty of negative attacks — from a campaign standpoint — is that they influence everyone. Here are a few different ways Ledgerwood and her team have studied to shake negativity and embrace a positive frame.

One way is to rename and relaunch the problem. Take Jobs Policy A that eventually everyone soured on in the first example. When those same people were presented with Job Policy B in substance, the same policy from a positive frame, they were suddenly more open-minded. Another way to combat negativity is to offer voters a new, unfamiliar situation with the possibility of a major gain.

Part of the problem in politics, Ledgerwood says, is that most of the political domain is about losses and preventing pain. We often think of climate change, for example, in terms of saving the Earth we have, and avoiding loss.

That goes for candidates, too. When you do find effective frames positive for yourself, negative for others , stick to them, Ledgerwood says.