Scandals and the Public's Trust in Politicians: Assimilation and Contrast Effects

Abstract

Subjects either were or were not asked to recall the names of politicians who had been involved in a scandal and subsequently evaluated the trustworthiness of politicians in general and of three specific exemplars. Answering the scandal question decreased judgments of trustworthiness of politicians in general but increased perceived trustworthiness of specific exemplars. Thus, an assimilation effect was obtained when the target category 'politicians in general" invited inclusion of the scandal politicians in the temporary representation formed of the target. In contrast, the primed politicians could not be included in the representations formed of specific individuals. In this case, they were used as a standard of comparison, resulting in contrast effects. These findings are consistent with the inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects, which emphasizes the role of categorization processes in the construction of targets and standards.