Sexual Predators in Contest for Public Office: How the American Electorate Responds to News of Allegations of Candidates Committing Sexual Assault and Harassment

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Overview

Paper Summary

Conflicts of Interest

Identified Weaknesses

Rating Explanation

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Paper Summary

Paperzilla title

Oops, I Did It Again! Voters Let Sexual Harassment Slide for Their Own Party (Especially Republicans!)

This survey experiment on American voters found that while sexual assault/harassment allegations generally decrease a candidate's electability, partisanship significantly mitigates this effect, particularly for Republican voters who are less likely to penalize their own party's candidates. The study used a hypothetical candidate and relies on self-reported voting intentions, and its MTurk sample may not perfectly represent the entire American electorate.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified

Identified Weaknesses

Reliance on MTurk Sample

While acknowledged by the authors as more diverse than college students, an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) sample may not be fully representative of the broader American electorate, potentially limiting the generalizability of the findings on voter behavior.

Hypothetical Candidate

The use of a single gender-neutral hypothetical candidate, 'Jamie Easton,' might not fully capture the complexities of voter reactions to real-world candidates with established reputations, specific public personas, or varying types of actual allegations. This could limit the ecological validity of the experiment.

Simplified Allegation Scenario

The specific wording of the sexual harassment allegation (groping, harassment, and a settled lawsuit) was chosen to be 'not extremely violent' and a 'relatively minor legal issue.' This simplification might not reflect the diverse range and severity of real-world allegations, potentially leading to an underestimation or altered perception of voter response to more serious or unproven claims.

Self-Reported Voting Intention

The dependent variable relies on self-reported 'likelihood to vote,' which is a stated intention and may not perfectly translate to actual voting behavior in a real election. Social desirability bias could also influence responses.

Blunt Proxies for Underlying Values

The authors acknowledge that using Democrat/Republican affiliation as a proxy for social liberalism/conservatism and 'rape myth acceptance' is a blunt measure. More fine-grained psychological measures of these underlying values could provide a deeper understanding of the causal mechanisms at play.

Rating Explanation

This study is a well-designed survey experiment that provides novel and important insights into how partisanship moderates voter responses to sexual assault and harassment allegations. The methodology is sound for its chosen approach, and the authors acknowledge the inherent limitations of using hypothetical candidates and MTurk samples.

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Topic Hierarchy

Domain:

Social Sciences

Field:

Social Sciences

Subfield:

Sociology and Political Science

File Information

Original Title:

Sexual Predators in Contest for Public Office: How the American Electorate Responds to News of Allegations of Candidates Committing Sexual Assault and Harassment

File Name:

paper_2002.pdf

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File Size:

0.51 MB

Uploaded:

September 28, 2025 at 02:26 AM

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