Working Papers
Zárate, Marques, Enrique Quezada, and Angel Armenta. "Me Llamo Josh: Spanish-language appeals and Candidate Evaluations in the United States" Invited to revise and resubmit
Political candidates engage in Spanish-language appeals in efforts to increase support among Hispanic voters. We argue that candidates, Hispanic or not, can use Spanish to signal closeness to Hispanics, and posit that the effectiveness of these appeals is conditional on fluency. To test this, we run an experiment where participants listen to an audio clip of a hypothetical candidate's stump speech. We vary the ethnicity of the candidate (Anglo or Hispanic) and the language of the speech (English, poor Spanish, and fluent Spanish). We find that Hispanic support for the Anglo and Hispanic candidates is higher in the fluent Spanish condition compared to the English-only condition. Relative to the English condition, poor Spanish does not increase support for the Anglo candidate but it decrease support for the Hispanic candidate. Similar findings are found for Anglo participants. Our results suggest that candidates can effectively appeal to Hispanic voters using Spanish-language messages.
Zárate, Marques, and Matthew Hayes. "Does Political Trust Moderate the Relationship between Anxiety and Political Participation?"
We examine whether political trust moderates the relationship between feelings of anxiety and political participation. Political trust was tested as the moderator as one way to account for previous inconsistent findings regarding the link between anxiety and political participation. Anxiety prompts a fight or flight reaction in the individual, producing two possible causal directions. In today’s political environment, uncertainty and threat are relatively high, making the study of the effect of anxiety on political participation important. We propose that anxieties effect on political participation is moderated by the level of trust an individual has in either their elected representatives to make good decisions or in the United States government ability as an institution to mitigate and address threatening issues. We posit that individuals with greater trust in the government are more likely to participate in politics when confronted with threat and uncertainty while those individuals with little or no trust in the government are likely to stray away from political participation when confronted with threat and uncertainty.
Political candidates engage in Spanish-language appeals in efforts to increase support among Hispanic voters. We argue that candidates, Hispanic or not, can use Spanish to signal closeness to Hispanics, and posit that the effectiveness of these appeals is conditional on fluency. To test this, we run an experiment where participants listen to an audio clip of a hypothetical candidate's stump speech. We vary the ethnicity of the candidate (Anglo or Hispanic) and the language of the speech (English, poor Spanish, and fluent Spanish). We find that Hispanic support for the Anglo and Hispanic candidates is higher in the fluent Spanish condition compared to the English-only condition. Relative to the English condition, poor Spanish does not increase support for the Anglo candidate but it decrease support for the Hispanic candidate. Similar findings are found for Anglo participants. Our results suggest that candidates can effectively appeal to Hispanic voters using Spanish-language messages.
Zárate, Marques, and Matthew Hayes. "Does Political Trust Moderate the Relationship between Anxiety and Political Participation?"
We examine whether political trust moderates the relationship between feelings of anxiety and political participation. Political trust was tested as the moderator as one way to account for previous inconsistent findings regarding the link between anxiety and political participation. Anxiety prompts a fight or flight reaction in the individual, producing two possible causal directions. In today’s political environment, uncertainty and threat are relatively high, making the study of the effect of anxiety on political participation important. We propose that anxieties effect on political participation is moderated by the level of trust an individual has in either their elected representatives to make good decisions or in the United States government ability as an institution to mitigate and address threatening issues. We posit that individuals with greater trust in the government are more likely to participate in politics when confronted with threat and uncertainty while those individuals with little or no trust in the government are likely to stray away from political participation when confronted with threat and uncertainty.