Calling “Gevald”: on the emergence of negative election forecasts in partisan communications
通过五项低信息选举研究和一项假设的美国选举研究，发现人们在党派沟通中倾向于做出乐观预测，但负面框架（如将结果表述为“下降”）会轻易逆转这种乐观，导致多数人预测失败。
Abstract Individuals were found to anonymously predict positive election outcomes for their preferred candidate. Yet, there is little scientific knowledge about election predictions made in the context of same-camp political communications (i.e., partisan communications) that are presumably meant to encourage other supporters. In five studies of low-information elections and a study of hypothetical U.S. elections (n = 1889), we found that people tended to communicate favorable forecasts to others sharing their view, compared to the neutral point and to the actual election outcomes. On the other hand, negative framing reduced the positivity of forecasts in these communications to the extent that it led most participants to predict an election loss. This occurred in response to a single addressee acting discordantly and even more strongly when the election results were phrased as a drop. When both positive and negative framing options were available, this still negativity affected participants’ predictions even though only a minority selected the negative framing option. Thus, people tend to make optimistic election predictions in partisan communications, but this pattern is easily manipulable given subtle changes in the forecasting prompt, either by negative framing or selectable positive and negative framing.