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Our understanding of the impact of party conventions on opinion regarding presidential candidates is based largely on aggregate-level analysis. Extant individual-level investigation has been limited by the assumption that conventions are monolithic information events that exercise uniform effects. Using panel data, we show for the first time that conventions exercise two independent effects, which can counteract or reinforce each other depending on individual characteristics and information consumption. First, we demonstrate how exposure to speeches exercises a persuasive effect that benefits the convening candidate, even when partisanship is controlled. Second, we demonstrate how conventions exercise an atmospheric effect that activates general partisan bias. We find that observed postconvention changes are attributable to the combination of these separate but simultaneous effects. We also explore how individual partisanship conditions speech effects and find evidence that partisanship influences the decision to listen but is unlikely to influence the impact of a message already heard. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Reexamining the relationship between the on-line and memory-based information processing models, this study presents a theoretical basis for the co-occurrence of on-line and memory-based processes and proposes a hybrid model. The study empirically tests the hybrid model by employing real-time tracking of participants' reactions to two candidates in a US presidential primary election debate. The findings confirm an independent, but complementary relationship between on-line and memory-based information processing in an individual's candidate evaluation and vote choice. The co-occurrence of the two modes applies to an individual's comparison of candidates as well. The implications of the hybrid model for the functioning of democracy are discussed. Adapted from the source document.

This project employs 2008 National Election Study (NES) data to explore whether parents are different than nonparents in terms of their political attitudes and candidate evaluations. We find that parenthood does have political consequences although often not in ways suggested by conventional wisdom. Rather than finding parents to be a conservative group, our results support the idea that raising children has liberalizing effects on the attitudes of women. Fatherhood shapes attitudes less than motherhood, but these fewer effects are in a conservative direction. We argue that the distinctive politics of mothers and fathers reflects the impact of parenting as a gendered socialization experience combined with the contrasting parenthood themes articulated by the Republican and Democratic parties. Finally, despite media coverage suggesting Sarah Palin's "Hockey Mom" image would attract parents, especially mothers, to her candidacy and the Republican ticket we find no support for this idea. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

This study examines the dynamic, real-time interplay between the emotional content of political television ads and individuals' political attitudes during ad processing based upon the Dynamic Motivational Activation (DMA) theoretical framework. Time-series cross-sectional models were developed to test the effects of three motivational inputs of emotional ads (arousing content, positivity, and negativity) and viewers' evaluation of the featured candidates on four psychophysiological responses (heart rate, skin conductance level, corrugator electromyography, and zygomatic electromyography). As predicted by the DMA, physiological responses during ad viewing were affected by their own first- and second-order dynamic system feedback effects. These results not only support the predicted dynamic nature of the physiological system but also help disentangle message effects from the moderating and accumulating effects of the physiological system itself. Also as predicted, message motivational inputs interacted with viewers' political attitudes to determine psychophysiological responses to the ads. Supporters of opposing political candidates showed cardiac-somatic response patterns indicative of disparate attention to the advertised information. Attentional selectivity can be a critical component in determining how information processing influences campaign message reception and effects.

The 2008 U.S. Presidential election was a worldwide event that gained significant public and media attention well beyond the borders of the United States. In this study, we assess the impact of media coverage of Presidential candidates Obama and McCain on public opinion dynamics in the Netherlands. Drawing on three sources of data-a media content analysis, ten repeated cross-sectional surveys and a two-wave panel survey-we assess media effects on candidate campaign evaluations and expectations of who will the election on the macro- and micro-level. We find that media favorability increases positive evaluations of McCain, while being exposed to the campaign in general contributed to more favorable assessments of Obama. We explain these results by pointing to the overwhelmingly stable and positive coverage of Obama in international media. Adapted from the source document.

Answers to political sophistication questions are typically tied to theoretical or nonnative assumptions, which produce given sets of operational guidelines. In this study, I develop an understanding of election specific expertise, conceived of as three distinct dimensions-knowledge, interest, and media exposure. This methodological approach helps provide a richer appreciation of the unique effects of each dimension on the nature, number, and breadth of candidate considerations employed by voters. Results lend support for the overriding claim that sophistication is a critical source of heterogeneity within the American electorate. The classic democratic competency standard of an issue-driven voting public is achieved through a more knowledgeable, interested citizenry. At the same time, knowledge and interest produce divergent influences on particular types of personality-based candidate evaluations while media exposure is most remarkable for its absence of explanatory value. Adapted from the source document.

Previous studies examining whether the faces of candidates affect election outcomes commonly measure study participants' subjective judgment of various characteristics of candidates, which participants infer based solely on the photographic images of candidates. We, instead, develop a smile index of such images objectively with automated face‐recognition technology. The advantage of applying this new technology is that the automated process of measuring facial traits is by design independent of voters' subjective evaluations of candidate attributes, based on the images, and thus allows us to estimate "undiluted" effects of facial appearance per se on election outcomes. The results of regression analysis using Japanese and Australian data show that the smile index has statistically significant and substantial effects on the vote share of candidates even after controlling for other covariates.

The last several decades have witnessed remarkable advances in neurobiological approaches, including evolutionary, neuropsychological, behavioral genetic, and physiological methods to explore individual differences in social and political phenomena. In this special issue, we seek to include these advances into the greater political psychology discourse through a series of articles focused on topics of enduring interest to political psychologists, such as candidate evaluation, voter turnout, race, and public preferences concerning social welfare policy.