An Experimental Study of Prejudice Toward Drivers With Political Bumper Stickers. Joy Drinnon and Amanda Largent. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, Fall2019, Vol. 24 Issue 3, p149-158. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.psichi.org/resource/resmgr/journal_2019/24_3_Drinnon.pdf
ABSTRACT. In this experiment, we tested whether a political sticker would affect prejudice toward a hypothetical driver. An online survey was made available to MTurk workers and a small convenience sample in October 2016. Participants were shown 1 of 3 randomly assigned pictures of a car with 5 nonpolitical bumper stickers or the same car with a Trump or Clinton campaign sticker added. Participants were asked: (a) how likely they would be to vandalize the car (1 = extremely likely to 5 = extremely unlikely), (b) how much money they would put in a timed out parking meter ($0.00 to $1.00), and (c) whether they could be friends with the driver (3 = yes, 1 = no, 2 = maybe). Although 214 people completed the study, only those with plans to vote for 1 of the 2 major parties were included for analysis. Thus, results were based on 180 participants (106 Clinton/Kaine voters and 74 Trump/ Pence voters). As expected, Trump and Clinton supporters were significantly more generous, F(2, 174) = 9.57, p < .001, ηp2 = .099, and friendly, F(2, 174) = 9.6, p < .001, ηp2 = .10, toward the hypothetical owner of the car with a sticker supporting their candidate of choice and were more likely to say they would vandalize the car promoting a candidate they did not support, F(2, 174) = 4.4, p < .001, ηp2 = .048. The results confirm what was expected based on previous research on impression formation, group identity bias, and prejudice.
Keywords: bumper sticker, impression formation, prejudice, group identity
Discussion
More than 15 million political bumper stickers are printed every year (“Bumper stickers,” 2016) and there is evidence that their presence affects other drivers, including increased risk of road rage (Szlemko, Benfield, Bell, Deffenbacher, & Troup, 2008). The purpose of the present study was to test the effect of a political bumper sticker on prejudice through a randomized experiment. Specifically, we expected to find differences in someone’s intentions to help, harm, or befriend a hypothetical driver based on the presence of a political campaign sticker and its relevance to the social identity of the viewer. The results of the study showed that interactions between the political sticker and the participants’ partisan views were significant for all three dependent variables. Not surprisingly, participants who said they were voting for Clinton and were shown the car with the Trump sticker were less likely to help the driver, more likely to say they might vandalize the car, and less likely to indicate they could be friends with that person. The same partisan effect was found in participants who said they were voting for Trump but were shown the car with the Clinton sticker. However, responses from participants in the control group (no partisan stickers) were unaffected. These results support assumptions that the presence of a political sticker can affect attitudes toward other drivers. Of course, thinking about harming or helping another driver is not tantamount to acting on such impulses, and these findings are not altogether surprising. Nevertheless, this study offers a new approach to investigating social psychological processes such as impression formation, social identity, group conflict, and ingroup favoritism.
First, these results support research on impression formation and Anderson’s information integration theory (Anderson, 1981), in particular. According to this theory, impressions formed by participants would be a combination of their partisan views and the weighted average of the information about the hypothetical driver. Participants in our study had no information about the driver, other than the car and its assorted stickers, and they had to rely on that information to make their judgments. We intentionally used a combination of nonpartisan and varied stickers in all three conditions so that participants would have plenty of “material” to support a variety of opinions about the driver including some socially responsible (Don’t text and drive), whimsical (Wookies need love), and one slightly hostile (Sorry I’m driving so closely in front of you). We hypothesized that the presence of a single political sticker would significantly shift perceptions of the driver in much the same way that the presence of one trait altered impressions formed by participants in Asch’s nowclassic study (1946). The results did support this conclusion. The striking similarity of attitudes toward the driver in the control condition indicates that the nonpartisan stickers had very little impact, at least when comparing participants by their politics. The addition of the political sticker seems to be the factor that pushed partisans to behave differently toward the hypothetical driver. This also supports the negative trait bias (Baumeister et al., 2001) because the negativity from just the single political sticker outweighed any potential positive traits the driver might have possessed (e.g., caring about animals or the safety of others).
Second, these results support what is already known about social identity and group conflict. Identifying with a group increases people’s sense of belonging, control, meaningfulness, and selfesteem (Tajfel & Turner, 2004). Political identity is an important social group for many people, and the presence of political stickers indicates strong partisan identification or identity fusion (Morrison & Miller, 2008; Swann & Buhrmester, 2015). Moreover, if the viewers of such stickers also identify strongly with a political party, they should be more motivated to help or harm the driver, especially when there is a threat to that identity (Greenberg et al., 2016). In an election as contentious as 2016, the threat of losing control of the White House and/or Congress would be the ultimate threat against one’s political party, thus justifying prejudice.
Although outgroup hostility is one way of confirming commitment to important social groups (Knapton, Bäck, & Bäck, 2015), most prejudice comes in the form of preferential treatment toward members of an ingroup rather than from hostility toward an outgroup (Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014). This phenomenon was demonstrated in the present study. In terms of helping, the amount of money increased substantially from that of the control condition when the hypothetical driver shared the political views of the participant and dropped off sharply when the driver did not. Harm for the driver was measured as the likelihood of vandalizing the car, and although the results were statistically significant, the number of people who said they would be extremely likely to do so was very small. The effect sizes for helping (ηp2 = .099) and befriending the driver (ηp2 = .10) were also larger than the effect size for harming (ηp2 = .048). Thus, ingroup favoritism may be the most likely consequence of seeing bumper stickers, especially because it is also easier to imagine being a friend toward those with a shared identity.
Strengths and Limitations
The present study appears to be one of the first attempts to study the social psychological effects of bumper stickers. The results indicate that bumper stickers do have the ability to shape perceptions and behaviors toward other drivers, although the study is not without limitations. The sample size was relatively small and homogenous. In addition, a more representative sample of Trump and Clinton supporters would have been ideal. Although the use of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as a source of participants is preferable to college samples, it is not a representative sample of eligible voters in the United States (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014). Our sample was highly educated, relatively young, and more liberal, which are all characteristics that have been noted about this sampling source (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014). Arguably, different samples could lead to different results, especially if factors like age, education, and race are predictive of different levels of partisanship. Failing to control for these factors was a limitation in the present study. Moreover, because this was a firstofitskind study, it was designed without the benefit of prior research protocols to follow, so the methodology could certainly be improved upon. For example, there was room to include more questions in the survey, which could have provided more information such as the stereotypes held about the driver. It would also be helpful to test assumptions made concerning the need for additional stickers, as well as the content, number, and valence of the ideal assortment of stickers.
Discussion
More than 15 million political bumper stickers are printed every year (“Bumper stickers,” 2016) and there is evidence that their presence affects other drivers, including increased risk of road rage (Szlemko, Benfield, Bell, Deffenbacher, & Troup, 2008). The purpose of the present study was to test the effect of a political bumper sticker on prejudice through a randomized experiment. Specifically, we expected to find differences in someone’s intentions to help, harm, or befriend a hypothetical driver based on the presence of a political campaign sticker and its relevance to the social identity of the viewer. The results of the study showed that interactions between the political sticker and the participants’ partisan views were significant for all three dependent variables. Not surprisingly, participants who said they were voting for Clinton and were shown the car with the Trump sticker were less likely to help the driver, more likely to say they might vandalize the car, and less likely to indicate they could be friends with that person. The same partisan effect was found in participants who said they were voting for Trump but were shown the car with the Clinton sticker. However, responses from participants in the control group (no partisan stickers) were unaffected. These results support assumptions that the presence of a political sticker can affect attitudes toward other drivers. Of course, thinking about harming or helping another driver is not tantamount to acting on such impulses, and these findings are not altogether surprising. Nevertheless, this study offers a new approach to investigating social psychological processes such as impression formation, social identity, group conflict, and ingroup favoritism.
First, these results support research on impression formation and Anderson’s information integration theory (Anderson, 1981), in particular. According to this theory, impressions formed by participants would be a combination of their partisan views and the weighted average of the information about the hypothetical driver. Participants in our study had no information about the driver, other than the car and its assorted stickers, and they had to rely on that information to make their judgments. We intentionally used a combination of nonpartisan and varied stickers in all three conditions so that participants would have plenty of “material” to support a variety of opinions about the driver including some socially responsible (Don’t text and drive), whimsical (Wookies need love), and one slightly hostile (Sorry I’m driving so closely in front of you). We hypothesized that the presence of a single political sticker would significantly shift perceptions of the driver in much the same way that the presence of one trait altered impressions formed by participants in Asch’s nowclassic study (1946). The results did support this conclusion. The striking similarity of attitudes toward the driver in the control condition indicates that the nonpartisan stickers had very little impact, at least when comparing participants by their politics. The addition of the political sticker seems to be the factor that pushed partisans to behave differently toward the hypothetical driver. This also supports the negative trait bias (Baumeister et al., 2001) because the negativity from just the single political sticker outweighed any potential positive traits the driver might have possessed (e.g., caring about animals or the safety of others).
Second, these results support what is already known about social identity and group conflict. Identifying with a group increases people’s sense of belonging, control, meaningfulness, and selfesteem (Tajfel & Turner, 2004). Political identity is an important social group for many people, and the presence of political stickers indicates strong partisan identification or identity fusion (Morrison & Miller, 2008; Swann & Buhrmester, 2015). Moreover, if the viewers of such stickers also identify strongly with a political party, they should be more motivated to help or harm the driver, especially when there is a threat to that identity (Greenberg et al., 2016). In an election as contentious as 2016, the threat of losing control of the White House and/or Congress would be the ultimate threat against one’s political party, thus justifying prejudice.
Although outgroup hostility is one way of confirming commitment to important social groups (Knapton, Bäck, & Bäck, 2015), most prejudice comes in the form of preferential treatment toward members of an ingroup rather than from hostility toward an outgroup (Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014). This phenomenon was demonstrated in the present study. In terms of helping, the amount of money increased substantially from that of the control condition when the hypothetical driver shared the political views of the participant and dropped off sharply when the driver did not. Harm for the driver was measured as the likelihood of vandalizing the car, and although the results were statistically significant, the number of people who said they would be extremely likely to do so was very small. The effect sizes for helping (ηp2 = .099) and befriending the driver (ηp2 = .10) were also larger than the effect size for harming (ηp2 = .048). Thus, ingroup favoritism may be the most likely consequence of seeing bumper stickers, especially because it is also easier to imagine being a friend toward those with a shared identity.
Strengths and Limitations
The present study appears to be one of the first attempts to study the social psychological effects of bumper stickers. The results indicate that bumper stickers do have the ability to shape perceptions and behaviors toward other drivers, although the study is not without limitations. The sample size was relatively small and homogenous. In addition, a more representative sample of Trump and Clinton supporters would have been ideal. Although the use of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as a source of participants is preferable to college samples, it is not a representative sample of eligible voters in the United States (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014). Our sample was highly educated, relatively young, and more liberal, which are all characteristics that have been noted about this sampling source (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014). Arguably, different samples could lead to different results, especially if factors like age, education, and race are predictive of different levels of partisanship. Failing to control for these factors was a limitation in the present study. Moreover, because this was a firstofitskind study, it was designed without the benefit of prior research protocols to follow, so the methodology could certainly be improved upon. For example, there was room to include more questions in the survey, which could have provided more information such as the stereotypes held about the driver. It would also be helpful to test assumptions made concerning the need for additional stickers, as well as the content, number, and valence of the ideal assortment of stickers.
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