How Encouraging Niceness Can Incentivize Nastiness: An Unintended Consequence of Advertising Reform
研究发现，美国要求候选人背书广告的法规，意外增强了政策攻击型广告的可信度，因为背书标签和候选人亲自承诺让观众更相信广告内容，这反而可能助长负面竞选。
Enacted in an effort to discourage negative political advertising, American regulations mandate that candidates endorse their ads (“My name is ___, and I approve this message.”). Four studies suggest that mandatory endorsements enhance the perceived credibility of some ads these regulations were designed to discourage. This research tests for what types of messages mandatory endorsements have this effect, and why. Mandatory endorsements boosted evaluations of policy-focused attack ads—those typically plagued by overcomeable skepticism—but had no consistent effect on positive or character-focused ads. Mandatory endorsements boost ad believability—largely outside of participants' awareness—for two reasons: (1) the tagline offers a legitimizing association with regulation and (2) the candidates' own personally delivered endorsement language offers an implicit promise of the ads' truth value. The authors discuss how these findings bring order to and extend previous work on mandatory endorsements and ironic effects of communications requirements. Finally, they consider how regulations could be reformed to promote the public good by informing (without misleading) the electorate.