# Left- and right-wing perceptions of presidential candidates: Similarities and differences between French and American voters

Isabelle Regner, Rywick Thomas

► To cite this version:

Isabelle Regner, Rywick Thomas. Left- and right-wing perceptions of presidential candidates: Similarities and differences between French and American voters. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale = International review of social psychology, 2006, 19 (2), pp.103-125. hal-01473481

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# Left- and right-wing perceptions of presidential candidates: Similarities and differences between French and American voters*

Perceptions Droite-Gauche des candidats aux présidentielles : similarités et différences entre les électeurs Français et Américains

Isabelle Régner**
Thomas Rywick***

## Abstract

Using a standardized approach for measuring interpersonal perceptions, data was collected regarding left-wing and right-wing American and French voters' judgments of the leadership-related characteristics of the 2000 presidential candidates in the United States and the 2002 presidential candidates in France respectively. This descriptive study found that leftists and rightists from both countries made partisanship ratings of their main presidential candidates on values related to friendliness and task seriousness, but not on values related to dominance. In addition, perceptions of an ideal president by leftists and rightists were quite similar in France and in the United States.

## Résumé

Un outil standardisé mesurant les perceptions interpersonnelles a permis de recueillir les jugements d'électeurs américains et français, de droite et de gauche, sur les caractéristiques de leadership des principaux candidats aux présidentielles Américaines de 2000 et aux présidentielles Françaises de 2002. Cette étude descriptive a montré que les électeurs de droite et de gauche des deux pays évaluaient plus favorablement le candidat de leur parti sur des valeurs reliées au comportement amical et à l'orientation vers la tâche, mais pas sur des valeurs de domination. Enfin, les perceptions qu'ont les électeurs de droite et de gauche d'un président idéal se sont révélées assez similaires en France et aux Etats-Unis.

## Key-words

Presidential
Candidates, Left- and
Right-Wing Voters,
SYMLOG,
Interpersonal Values,
American and French
Politics

## Mots-clés

Candidats aux
présidentielles,
Electeurs de droite et
de gauche, SYMLOG,
Valeurs
interpersonnelles,
Politique française et
américaine.

<footnote>* Portions of this research concerning the American data have been presented by the second author at the American Psychological Society at Toronto in June 2001.</footnote>

<footnote>** Correspondence should be addressed to Isabelle Régner, Université Toulouse Le Mirail, Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociocognitives et Vie Politique, Maison de la Recherche, 5 allées Antonio-Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France</footnote>

<footnote>E.mail: regner@univ-tlse2.fr</footnote>

<footnote>*** Department of Psychology, State University of New York College at Fredonia, USA rywick@verizon.net</footnote>
The investigation of voters' perceptions of candidates' enduring personal orientations seems to be of growing importance since political scientists, at least in the United States, are changing their thinking about determinants of voting behavior. Older models of voting behavior, such as that of The American Voter (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960), focused primarily on issue concerns and partisan group connections, but more recent writers suggest that voters may focus on the personal qualities of a candidate to gain important information about characteristics relevant to assessing how the individual will perform in office (Miller, Wattenberg, & Malanchuk, 1986, p. 522). Likewise, Kinder (1986) argued that voters' judgments are based in some part on the degree to which political candidates convey admirable qualities of character (p. 234). In the 2000 election in the United States it is clear that the presidential candidates themselves believed in the importance of such determinants. For example, USA Today reported that candidate Bush, recognizing the potency of the leadership issue "... has coated his campaign with a thick patina of character-related code words" ("Bush, Gore seek," 2000). Added to the fact that news media increasingly focus on candidate images at the expense of policy issues, it is likely that the voters also tend to pay more and more attention to the politicians' traits (Hayes, 2004; Mendelsohn, 1994). Consistent with this, personality traits have been found to account for a greater portion of the variance in candidate preference than traditional political programs (Jones & Hudson, 1996; Pierce, 1993).

Since interest in the way voters perceive politicians' leadership characteristics is only recent, little is known about it. Of course some authors did investigate which personality traits voters may consider as important in political candidates (Conover, 1981; Glass, 1985; Miller et al., 1986). They mainly found that integrity, trustworthiness, competence and being a good leader were central to prototypical conceptions of an ideal politician (Kinder, Peters, Abelson, & Fiske, 1980; Miller et al., 1986; Brown, Lambert, Kay, & Curtis, 1988; Funk, 1997). Others examined why people perceive their leaders as charismatic (Conger & Kanungo, 1987), or investigated the effects of leaders' motive profile on effective leadership (House, Spangler, & Woycke, 1991;
McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982). However, little attention has been devoted to the leadership characteristics per se, so that the meaning of a “good leader” remains an open question. The first aim of the present research was thus to highlight which kind of leadership characteristics matter from people’s point of view during elections. Moreover, we also examined whether voters’ party identification could affect the kind of leadership characteristics that are inferred in political candidates. Even though party identification is considered to have declined in the electorate since the 1970s (as reflected, for example, in the rise of independents, greater skepticism about political parties, and less involvement in political activities), it still exerts a powerful influence (Bartels, 2000, 2002). Indeed, the voters’ spontaneous tendency is even now to vote for candidates of their party’s candidate (Crespi, 1989; Green, Palmquist, & Schickler, 2002). In addition, several studies have shown the existence of partisan stereotypes that can bias voters’ inferences as well as memory about candidates’ issue stands (Conover & Feldman, 1989; Hamill, Lodge, & Blake, 1985; Kinder, 1978; Lodge & Hamill, 1986; Lodge, McGraw, & Stroh, 1989), and affect their decision-making processes by discarding incongruent information (Rahn, 1993). Although these findings suggest that people can express in-group favoritism toward their party’s candidates, just as social identity theory would predict (Tajfel, 1978), Greene (2004) pointed out that this theoretical perspective has been largely ignored in political science research. Nevertheless, social identity theory may help explaining why party identification still has an impact on voters’ perceptions and behaviors despite its decline over time since several decades. The theory posits that individuals strive to establish a positive distinctiveness of their in-group compared with other groups, resulting in the well-known phenomenon of in-group favoritism (Tajfer & Turner, 1986). Moreover, many studies have shown that it takes only the slightest categorization to generate in-group favoritism (e.g., Billig & Tajfel, 1973; Tajfel, 1970; Tajfel & Billig, 1974; Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971). Applied to the political domain, this means that party identification need not be especially strong to induce more positive evaluations of one’s party’s candidate relative to the other party’s candidate (Greene, 2004). The second
aim of the present research was thus to examine whether leader-
ship characteristics of political candidates can be affected by
partisan biases during elections. We expected that simply catego-
rizing oneself in a specific party should be sufficient to elicit
in-group favoritism in the perceptions of leadership characteris-
tics among political candidates.

For that purpose, we used a standardized tool that has proved
successful to describe perceptions of leadership-related behav-
iors in organizational settings (Koenigs, 1996; Polley, Hare, &
Stone, 1988): the Bales's Interpersonal and Social Values form
(ISVAL; Bales & Cohen, 1979). ISVAL allows to capture three main
dimensions of leadership-related interpersonal values: (1) domi-
nance, which is related to the striving for individual success,
prominence and power; (2) friendliness, defined primarily by a
caring and concern for other individuals; and (3) task serious-
ness, a more complex dimension which is related to the tendency
to work toward group or societal goals and conform to existing
authority. The SYMLOG task seriousness and friendliness dimen-
sions are consistent with numerous social psychological theories
of leadership which postulate the importance of two major
dimensions of leadership (e.g., Kinder, 1986; Winter, 1987) vari-
ously referred to as task-oriented and relationship-oriented
(Fiedler, 1978), initiation of structure and consideration (Stogdill,
1974) directive and supportive (House & Baetz, 1979), and task
and socioemotional (Bales, 1950). On this basis, Ellis and his
associates (Ellis, Nadler, & Rabin, 1996; Nadler, Ellis, & Rabin,
1996) applied the ISVAL forms to the political domain in order to
tap the perceptions left-wing and right-wing voters have of polit-
ical leaders from left-wing and right-wing Israeli parties. Their
participants were 124 first-line and middle management at a large
manufacturing organization in Israel, who volunteered to partici-
pate at the study. Results indicated that both left-wing and
right-wing voters were much more likely to rate leaders with their
political orientation higher on task seriousness and friendliness,
but not on dominance. In fact, both left- and right-wing voters
viewed right-wing leaders as more dominant than left-wing
leaders. A finding the authors explained as the result of the right-
wing's political ideology which, in Israel and perhaps elsewhere,
puts emphasis on the military self-reliance and on a tough stance
in negotiations. Ellis *et al.* (1996) also found that left- and right-wing voters shared similar perceptions of an ideal leader, who was rated as reflecting values of dominance, friendliness and task-orientation.

The purpose of the present study was to generalize and extend Ellis *et al.* (1996)'s findings to other populations: French and American individuals during recent presidential elections. Although differing in their political system composition (i.e., multipartite system in France versus bipartite system in the United States), both countries are left-right oriented, with the American Democrats being clearly the party of the left and the American Republicans the party of the right (McKay, 2005). We thus examined left- and right-wing voters' perceptions of the leadership characteristics of the major candidates from the left and right in the American presidential elections of 2000 and in the first round of the French presidential election of 2002. Using ISVAL we were able to look at voters' perceptions of the candidates on the three value dimensions. We expected our results to closely match those of Ellis *et al.* (1996) in Israel. Specifically, our main hypothesis was that left-wing and right-wing voters, both in France and the United States, would give the candidate with their political orientation higher ratings on the task seriousness and friendliness dimensions. As Ellis *et al.* (1996), we also compared left-wing and right-wing perceptions of an ideal president. However, going further than these authors, we examined which ISVAL values were considered as desirable or undesirable in an ideal president in order to help interpret whether higher ratings of the candidates on the three dimensions would reflect in-group favoritism. We reasoned that participants should rate candidates with their political orientation higher on values they consider desirable in an ideal president, but lower on undesirable values. Finally, all these analyses were also embedded in a comparative perspective between France and the United States. Given the difference between these two countries in terms of political system composition, we found it interesting to examine the similarities (and differences) between leftists and rightists in their ratings of main political leaders as well as of an ideal president in both countries. Whereas the American bipartite political system has contributed to shape a very clear and different image of
Republican and Democratic orientations (Hayes, 2005; Rahn, 1993), the French multipartite system (at least 11 main different parties and nothing less than 16 candidates at the 2002 presidential elections) has recently been considered to weaken the distinction between left- and right-wing orientations (Buffotot & Hanley, 2003). Such a difference could lead to the expectation of stronger in-group favoritism among American voters.

## Method

### Participants

Three hundred and sixty-seven Americans from Western New York and 418 French from Toulouse were randomly selected from either telephone books (and then received the survey by regular mail) or psychology courses (and completed the survey during courses). American participants fulfilled the survey approximately one month before the 2000 American presidential election, and French participants one month before the 2002 French presidential elections. Only 68 Americans (37 males; ages 21 to 84) and 150 French (50 males; ages 19 to 79) correctly completed surveys. This low rate of usable questionnaires was mainly due to the obvious reluctance of individuals to answer questions about their political orientation and party affiliation they consider as extremely confidential and personal issues. This reluctance emerged even though our participants were assured of complete anonymity.

### Measures

#### Participants' Political Orientation

American participants were asked to circle the name of the party to which they identified (i.e., Democratic or Republican) but also had the opportunity to give the name of an unlisted party as well as to answer “independent”. They then indicated which of four political philosophies best described themselves (i.e., very conservative, slightly or somewhat conservative, slightly or somewhat liberal, very liberal), but could also answer “I don’t know”. French participants were asked to indicate to which of the 11 most important political French parties they identified. More
precisely, 3 were extreme left-wing parties (Parti Communiste Français, Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, Lutte Ouvrière), 2 were left-wing (Parti Socialiste, Mouvement Des Citoyens), one was a green party (Les Verts, generally considered as being very close to left-wing parties), 3 were right-wing parties (Rassemblement Pour la République, Démocratie Libérale, Rassemblement Pour la France) and 2 were extreme right-wing parties (Front National, Mouvement National Républicain). Participants had thus to circle the name of the party of their choice but also had the opportunity to give the name of an unlisted party as well as to answer "I don't know". In addition, French participants were asked to choose between the six political orientations that are usually proposed in national surveys (i.e., extreme left-wing, left-wing, middle, right-wing, extreme right-wing, independent).

Preference for Candidates

To assess participants' preference for candidates, we asked them to indicate for which candidate they would vote if the presidential elections were happening today. The proposed list named the four candidates who were presented by the media as highest in the polls at that moment: Bush (Republican), Gore (Democrat), Nader (Green) and Buchanan (independent) for the American sample, and Chirac (right-wing), Jospin (left-wing), Chevènement (left-wing) and Le Pen (extreme right-wing) for the French sample. Participants had to circle the name of the candidate they preferred or write the name of another candidate.

Voting Intention

Participants rated on a 4-point scale how likely they were to vote in the upcoming presidential elections (1 = definitely will vote, 2 = probably will vote, 3 = probably will not vote or 4 = definitely will not vote).

ISVAL

The SYMLOG Interpersonal and Social Values rating form consists of 26 items (See Appendix A) referring to all possible locations in the value space defined by the three dimensions: dominance,
friendliness, and task seriousness. Each dimension is bi-polar, with a “positive” and a “negative” (opposite) side, and each side consists of 9 items (See Appendix B). The positive poles of Dominance, Friendliness and Task seriousness refers, respectively, to dominant behaviors, friendly behaviors and instrumentally controlled behaviors. On the contrary, the “negative” poles refer, respectively, to submissiveness, unfriendliness and emotionally expressive behaviors that are not task-oriented. To compute the three dimensional scores, the 9 items corresponding to each side are first summed up, leading thus to 6 scores (two scores per dimension). Then, for each of the 3 dimensions, the score corresponding to the “negative” pole is subtracted from the score corresponding to the “positive” pole of the dimension. Information regarding the psychometric properties of the SYMLOG rating forms and the relationship of the 26 items to the three dimensional scores appears in Appendix D of Bales and Cohen (1979).

Participants had to indicate to what extent each statement would be descriptive of Bush/Chirac, Gore/Jospin and “a most effective president” (by circling 1 = *rarely*, 2 = *sometimes* or 3 = *often*). Moreover, to help interpret whether higher ratings of the candidates on the three dimensions would reflect in-group favoritism, we also tried to identify which of the 26 values participants perceived as desirable, undesirable or neutral in an ideal president. Since ratings could range from 1 to 3, we reasoned that means inferior or equal to 1.67 (lowest third of the range) could refer to undesirable characteristics for a most effective president whereas means superior or equal to 2.33 (highest third of the range) could refer to much more desirable characteristics. The other means (i.e., between 1.67 and 2.33) referred to *neutral* characteristics.

To investigate reliability of the three bi-polar dimensions, the ratings to each stimulus person were summed up. Cronbach's alphas were very similar to those found by Ellis *et al.* (1996) on the Hebrew version of the SYMLOG: .67 for the French sample and .68 for the US sample on friendliness; .68 for the French sample and .72 for the US sample on task-seriousness; .72 for the French sample and .72 for the US sample on dominance.
# Results: Preliminary Analyses

## Participants' Political Orientation

The American sample appeared to be somewhat less Republican (20.6% Republican, 52.9% Democratic, 26.5% Independent) than the voter registration lists of the Western New York counties that were surveyed (29.8% Republican, 48.6% Democratic, 21.7% Independent). However, a chi-square goodness-of-fit test indicated no significant difference, $\chi^2(2) = 2.97, p = .10$. The results also showed a great correspondence between party affiliation and political philosophy since most Democrats reported being liberal (80.6%) and most Republicans reported being conservative (93%).

The French sample appeared to be more left-wing (40% left-wing, 3% extreme left-wing, 12% middle, 19% right-wing, 1% extreme right-wing, 25% independent) than would be expected from the results of a French national survey conducted by the SOFRES in 2001-2002 among a representative sample of 1000 French voters (26% left-wing, 11% extreme left-wing, 9% middle, 18% right-wing, 5% extreme right-wing, and 31% Independent/Other). However, this difference was not significant, $\chi^2(5) = 9.39, p = .10$, and this variety of political orientations confirmed the multipartite composition of the French political system. Furthermore, 7% of the participants reported being identified to an extreme left-wing party, 40% to a left-wing party, 13% to a right-wing party and 40% answered "I don't know". No participant reported being identified to an extreme right-wing party. Finally, as for the American sample, the results showed a great correspondence between party affiliation and political orientation. Indeed, the leftists reported either a preference for a left-wing party (81.5%) or no preference at all (18.5%). Likewise, although less partisanship, the rightists reported either a preference for a right-wing party (47%) or no preference at all (53%).

Since the aim of the present research was to investigate certain political perceptions of right- and left-wing French participants and American Democrats and Republicans, only these respondents were included in the following analyses. The resulting samples were 88 French participants (28 rightists and 60 leftists)
and 50 American participants (14 Republicans and 36 Democrats).

## Voting Intention and Candidate Preferences

Both American ($M = 1.12, SD =.39$) and French participants ($M = 1.41, SD =.72$) reported that they were likely to vote in their corresponding presidential election. Concerning the American sample, most Democrats reported a preference for Gore (83.3%) while a small minority reported a preference for either Bush (2.8%) or Nader (13.9%). Likewise, most Republicans reported their intention to support Bush (85.7%) and only a minority of them (14.3%) reported their preference for Gore, $\chi^2(2, N = 50) = 36.12, p < .001$. Candidate preferences were somewhat less clear for the French sample where a significant minority reported preference for a candidate that was neither Chirac nor Jospin. Indeed, 75% of the leftists reported a preference for Jospin while 25% named another candidate, and 70% of the rightists were Chirac supporters while the other 30% named another candidate, $\chi^2(2, N = 88) = 67.77, p < .001$.

## Results: Central Analyses

### Perceptions of Candidates

To test whether right- and left-wing French and American participants would make partisan ratings, separate 2 X 2 mixed Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted on each of the three dimensions to control for the impact of the two remaining dimensions (which served as the covariates). Participants' political affiliation (right- versus left-wing) was the between-subject factor, and the candidates being evaluated (Jospin versus Chirac for the French sample and Bush versus Gore for the American sample) was the within-subject factor. Because French and American participants had to rate different leaders, separate analyses were of course conducted on each sample. Table 1 displays the means adjusted for the corresponding covariate for the French and the American participants.

For both the American and French samples, the analyses conducted on the three ISVAL dimensions revealed significant
<table><caption>Table 1: Adjusted mean ratings (and standard errors) made by right- and left-wing French and American participants for both candidates (respectively Jospin and Chirac, Gore and Bush).</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="3">SYMLOG dimensions</th><th colspan="4">French participants</th><th colspan="4">American participants</th></tr><tr><th colspan="2">Left-wing</th><th colspan="2">Right-wing</th><th colspan="2">Democrats</th><th colspan="2">Republicans</th></tr><tr><th>Jospin</th><th>Chirac</th><th>Jospin</th><th>Chirac</th><th>Gore</th><th>Bush</th><th>Gore</th><th>Bush</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Friendliness</td><td>4.70<br>(.45)</td><td>.30<br>(.49)</td><td>1.10<br>(.69)</td><td>3.81<br>(.75)</td><td>3.45<br>(.55)</td><td>.59<br>(.64)</td><td>1.28<br>(.95)</td><td>2.61<br>(1.11)</td></tr><tr><td>Task-seriousness</td><td>5.78<br>(.46)</td><td>.87<br>(.64)</td><td>1.86<br>(.73)</td><td>4.36<br>(1)</td><td>5.87<br>(.65)</td><td>2.26<br>(.81)</td><td>.33<br>(1.08)</td><td>4.77<br>(1.35)</td></tr><tr><td>Dominance</td><td>2.15<br>(.44)</td><td>4.30<br>(.44)</td><td>1.36<br>(.71)</td><td>6.10<br>(.71)</td><td>3.40<br>(.50)</td><td>3.00<br>(.53)</td><td>2.18<br>(.87)</td><td>2.23<br>(.94)</td></tr></tbody></table>

interactions on both the friendliness dimension ($F(1, 46) = 4.63$, $p < .04$, $\eta^2 = .09$ for American participants and $F(1, 84) = 37.08$, $p < .001$, $\eta^2 = .31$ for French participants), and on the task seriousness dimension ($F(1, 46) = 17.05$, $p < .001$, $\eta^2 = .27$ for American participants and $F(1, 84) = 18.08$, $p < .001$, $\eta^2 = .18$ for French participants). The analysis of the dominance dimension scores revealed only a significant main effect of the candidates for the French participants, $F(1, 84) = 26.61$, $p < .001$, $\eta^2 = .25$, indicating that both leftists and rightists viewed Chirac ($M = 5.20$, $SE = .37$) as more dominant than Jospin ($M = 1.76$, $SE = .37$).

Tests of simple main effects on the friendliness dimension indicated that (1) left-wing French participants viewed Jospin as more friendly ($M = 4.70$, $SE = .45$) than Chirac ($M = .30$, $SE = .49$) at $p < .01$, and (2) right-wing French participants viewed Chirac as more friendly ($M = 3.81$, $SE = .75$) than Jospin ($M = 1.10$, $SE = .69$) at $p < .01$. Likewise, American Democrats rated Gore as more friendly ($M = 3.45$, $SE = .55$) than Bush ($M = .59$, $SE = .64$) at $p < .01$. However, no significant difference appeared at $p < .05$ between Republican participants' ratings of Bush ($M = 2.61$, $SE = 1.11$) and Gore ($M = 1.28$, $SE = .95$) while the means were in the expected direction. On the task seriousness dimension, tests of simple main effects indicated at $p < .01$ that left-wing French participants viewed Jospin as more task-oriented ($M = 5.78$, $SE = .46$) than Chirac ($M = .87$, $SE = .64$). No significant difference appeared at $p < .05$ between French right-wing participants' ratings of Chirac ($M = 4.36$, $SE = 1.00$) and Jospin ($M = .86$, $SE = .73$) while the means were here again in the expected direction. Concerning the American sample, results indicated at $p < .01$ that (1) Democrats viewed Gore as more task-oriented ($M = 5.87$, $SE = .65$) than Bush ($M = 2.26$, $SE = .81$), and (2) Republicans
viewed Bush as more task-oriented (M = 4.77, SE = 1.35) than Gore (M = .33, SD = 1.08).

Perception of a Most Effective President

First, to help interpret whether the previous higher ratings
obtained for the in-group candidate reflected in-group favoritism,
we examined whether items used to compute the positive sides
of the three dimensions were perceived as desirable, undesirable
or neutral in an ideal president. It appeared that most of the
items used to compute the positive sides of the task seriousness
(i.e., items 3, 4, 11, 13, 19 and 21) and friendliness dimensions
(i.e., items 3, 9, 10, 11 and 19) were considered by all participants
as desirable values in an ideal president (all means superior to
2.33). This was the case for only 3 of the 9 items used to compute
the positive side of the dominance dimension (i.e., items 3, 4 and
9). These results indicate that being friendly and task-oriented
were valued leadership characteristics for our participants. As a
consequence, the higher ratings made by American and French
leftists for their party's candidate on the friendliness and task
seriousness dimensions reflected in-group favoritism. Likewise,
the higher ratings for their in-group candidate made by the
American rightists on the task seriousness dimension and by the
French rightists on the friendliness dimension reflected their
biased perception in favor of their party's political leader.

Second, we examined whether the three dimensions were
considered as equally important by leftists and rightists of both
countries. For that purpose, a mixed 2 X 2 X 3 ANOVA was
conducted with participants' political orientation (left- versus
right-wing) and nationality (French versus American) as between-
subjects factors, and the three dimensions as the repeated
measure. This analysis revealed a main effect of the SYMLOG
dimensions, F (2, 268) = 57.69, p < .001, η² = .30, indicating that
the strongest importance was allocated to the task-seriousness
dimension (M = 6.77, SE = .32), followed by the friendliness
dimension (M = 4.28, SE = .29) and the dominance dimension
(M = 2.13, SE = .29) which received the lowest ratings (multiple
pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni adjustment at p < .01).
That main effect was qualified by interactions between the
SYMLOG dimensions and participants' political orientation, F (2,
268) = 7.71, *p* <.001, η² = .05, and between the SYMLOG dimensions and participants' nationality, *F* (2, 268) = 5.61, *p* <.005, η² = .04. Simple main effects indicated that the dominance dimension was found more important by the rightists (*M* = 2.77, *SE* = .49) than by the leftists (*M* = 1.50, *SE* = .32), *F* (1, 134) = 4.75, *p* < .03, η² = .03. On the contrary, the leftists (*M* = 5.18, *SE* = .31) gave more weight to the friendliness dimension than did the rightists (*M* = 3.38, *SE* = .49), *F* (1, 134) = 9.61, *p* < .002, η² = .07. Finally, it also appeared that French participants (*M* = 5.63, *SE* = .34) gave more importance to the friendliness dimension than did American participants (*M* = 2.92, *SE* = .47), *F* (1, 134) = 21.69, *p* < .001, η² = .14.

Discussion

The first aim of the present study was to examine whether right-
and left-wing voters from both France and United States made
partisanship ratings of presidential candidates. For that purpose,
we used the ISVAL form that has already proved useful for differ-
entiating voters' perceptions of candidates on important
interpersonal dimensions (Ellis et al., 1996). We thus compared
right- and left-wing French participants as well as American
Democrats and Republicans in their perceptions of the two main
presidential candidates at the latest elections. To help interpret
whether these ratings reflected in-group favoritism, we also
examined which separate ISVAL values were considered as desir-
able or undesirable in an ideal president. Finally, for exploratory
purposes, we examined whether differences and similarities
between right- and left-wing French participants were equivalent
to those between American Democrats and Republicans.

It is clear that in our French and American samples, there were
significant differences in the perceptions left- and right-wing
voters had of the two major presidential candidates on both the
friendliness and task-seriousness dimensions. Moreover, since
being friendly and task-oriented appeared to be valued leader-
ship characteristics for our participants, the observed higher
ratings on these dimensions were interpreted as reflecting in-
group favoritism, thereby supporting our main hypothesis. Both
American and French leftists evaluated more favorably the candi-
date of their political orientation on the friendliness and task seri-
ousness dimensions. Although less clearly, American and French
rightists also reported in-group favoritism: American rightists
rated more favorably their party's candidate on the task serious-
ness dimension but not on the friendliness dimension, whereas a
reverse pattern was obtained for French rightists. These findings
suggest that social identity theory is a relevant theoretical frame-
work to interpret the meaning and the implications of party
identification (Greene, 2004). The fact that French and American
participants were equally prone to express in-group favoritism
provides support for the idea that simply categorizing oneself in
a specific party is sufficient to elicit more positive evaluations of
one's party's candidate relative to the other party's candidate.
This may help explain why party identification still has an impact
on voters' perceptions and behaviors despite its decline over
time since several decades.

Concerning the dominance dimension, it appeared that leftists
and rightists of both countries did not report different ratings,
suggesting that this dimension was less relevant than the two
others for discriminating between in-group and out-group candi-
dates. This suggestion was supported by results obtained on
ratings of an ideal president which showed that the dominant
dimension received the lowest ratings compared with the other
two dimensions. These results support the importance of the
friendliness and task seriousness dimensions, for differentiating
perceptions of candidates, that had already been found in Israel
(Ellis et al., 1996). Added to the previous findings showing in-
group favoritism, there seems to be strong support for the notion
that these two dimensions, or similar variants thereof, are impor-
tant factors for the study of political leadership. The present
findings also revealed that French leftists and rightists rated
Chirac as more dominant than Jospin. This result parallels those
obtained by Ellis et al. (1996), hence strengthening their expla-
nation that the right-wing's political ideology in general conveys
dominance-related values that are especially salient and known
by everyone, whatever his/her own political orientation. In other
words, party labels are likely to provide cues about leadership
characteristics that their respective leaders may possess, and this
seems especially true for the right-wing party.
The other aim of the present study was to examine whether
differences (and similarities) between leftists and rightists in the
ratings of a most effective president were moderated by the
participants' nationality. The lack of interaction between partici-
pants' political orientation and nationality suggested that
perceptions of an ideal president by leftists and rightists were not
moderated by their nationality. The only difference between
French and American participants was found on the friendliness
dimension which was considered as more important by the
French. In fact, the findings mainly showed a strong agreement
between leftists and rightists from France and the United States.
Indeed, leftists from both countries gave more weight to the
friendliness dimension, whereas rightists gave more weight to
the dominance dimension. This is consistent with the classical
distinction between political values from the left and the right,
with rightists being conservative, committed to the preservation
of tradition and status quo, and likely to see the society as
inevitably hierarchical, and with leftists being rather committed
to change and in favor of greater equality (e.g., Jost, Burgess, &
Mosso, 2001; Sparks & Durkin, 1987). As a consequence, these
results suggest that political values are still well diffused and well
incorporated by right- and left-wing individuals, and do not vary
as a function of the political system (bipartite vs. multipartite
system).

Taken altogether, the present findings suggest that the power of
party's identification on voters' perceptions has not disappeared,
but may have moved from policy issues to leadership character-
istics. Indeed, at a time when political programs often appear
indistinguishable to voters, leadership characteristics of candi-
dates gain importance and thus become the main target of
partisan bias. Future research is then needed to establish the rela-
tive contribution of leadership characteristics related to
friendliness and task-seriousness dimensions to voters decision-
making processes during elections.

The present study is not without limitations, however. We are
aware that the samples of left- and right-wing voters in France as
well as in the United States, were not very large and were not true
random samples of all voters in the respective countries.
Nevertheless, the proportion of leftists and rightists in both
samples, as well as their reported candidates preferences, were
not significantly different from either the voter registration lists
or larger national surveys (See Preliminary Analyses Section).
Furthermore, the present results are in line with predictions
drawn from social identity theory and are consistent with the
classical differences expected in the distinction between left- and
right-wing values. For these reasons, we believe that our findings
do add to our knowledge of how political candidates are
perceived by voters. The reduced statistical power due to the
small samples size, however, still demands caution in the inter-
pretation of the present findings. It may explain, for example,
why in-group favoritism among French rightists on the task-seri-
ousness dimension and among American rightists on the
friendliness dimension did not reach significance. Another limita-
tion is the correlational nature of this study. We cannot know for
sure the causal relationships between the membership (or
labeling of oneself) in a particular political party and the percep-
tions of candidates. Of course, the cause-effect relationship
between voters' perceptions of candidates and party may be
more reciprocal than suggested above (Judd, Kenny, & Krosnick,
1983). It may well be that party affiliation does affect perceptions
of candidates, but these perceptions, once in place, serve to
strengthen the voter's belief in the correctness of his or her
choice of candidate and political orientation.

Despite its limitations, this study provided further evidence that ISVAL can be a useful tool to differentiate voters' perceptions of candidates on important interpersonal dimensions. As such, it may be helpful for other studies concerned with political attitudes such as those that examine the impact of political expertise on political attitudes. Indeed, there is still a debate between authors arguing that political expertise leads to moderate judgment (Plane, 1998; Tetlock, 1983, 1984) and those sustaining that it rather leads to extreme judgment (Brauer, Niedenthal & Chambres, 2000; Lusk & Judd, 1988; Sidanius, 1988). For the first ones, political experts are more likely than novices to hold moderate political judgments because they have developed a more complex political view and take into account both the positive and negative aspects of political objects. The opposite view holds that political experts are more likely to hold extreme atti-
tudes because they store information in memory only if it is
consistent with their preexisting judgments. Details regarding the
extremity of judgments (and perhaps differences in the extremity
of judgments on various judgment dimensions) might be
brought out with the complex ISVAL instrument. Another area of
political research which ISVAL might aid regards the impact of
specific negative information about a particular politician's trust-
worthiness on people's perceptions of politicians. Schwarz and
Bless (1992), for example, found that such negative information
leads to a more negative rating of the trustworthiness of politi-
cians in general (an assimilation effect) but a more positive view
of the trustworthiness of other specific politicians (contrast
effect). Here, ISVAL might be useful in painting a more complete
picture, beyond simply trustworthiness, of such assimilation and
contrast effects.

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# Appendix A

<table><caption>Table A1. Symlog Individual and Social Values Form</caption><thead><tr><td>Items</td><td>Location on the Dimensions</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1- Individual financial success, personal prominence and power</td><td>U</td></tr><tr><td>2- Popularity and social success, being liked and admired</td><td>UP</td></tr><tr><td>3- Social solidarity, active teamwork for a better society</td><td>UPF</td></tr><tr><td>4- Efficiency, strong impartial management</td><td>UF</td></tr><tr><td>5- Active reinforcement of authority, rules, and regulations</td><td>UNF</td></tr><tr><td>6- Tough-minded, self-oriented assertiveness</td><td>UN</td></tr><tr><td>7- Rugged, self-oriented individualism, resistance to authority</td><td>UNB</td></tr><tr><td>8- Having a good time, releasing tension, relaxing control</td><td>UB</td></tr><tr><td>9- Protecting less fortunate people, providing help when needed</td><td>UPB</td></tr><tr><td>10- Equality, democratic participation in decision making</td><td>P</td></tr><tr><td>11- Altruism, idealism, cooperation, collaboration with others</td><td>PF</td></tr><tr><td>12- Conservative, established, "correct" ways of doing things</td><td>F</td></tr><tr><td>13- Restraining individual desires, preserving social order</td><td>NF</td></tr><tr><td>14- Self-protection, self-interest first, self-sufficiency</td><td>N</td></tr><tr><td>15- Rejecting conformity to the established social order</td><td>NB</td></tr><tr><td>16- Changing society, different beliefs and values, creativity</td><td>B</td></tr><tr><td>17- Friendship, mutual pleasure, recreation</td><td>PB</td></tr><tr><td>18- Trust in the goodness of others</td><td>DP</td></tr><tr><td>19- Love, loyalty to others, faithfulness to ideals</td><td>DPF</td></tr><tr><td>20- Obedience, respect for authority, responsible hard work</td><td>DF</td></tr><tr><td>21- Self-sacrifice, if necessary, to preserve higher values</td><td>DNF</td></tr><tr><td>22- Passive rejection of popularity, going it alone</td><td>DN</td></tr><tr><td>23- Admission of failure, withdrawal of effort</td><td>DNB</td></tr><tr><td>24- Passive resistance, non-cooperation with authority</td><td>DB</td></tr><tr><td>25- Quiet contentment, taking it easy</td><td>DPB</td></tr><tr><td>26- Giving up personal needs and desires, passivity</td><td>D</td></tr></tbody></table>

Note. U and D represent respectively the Upward side (dominant) and the Downward side (submissive) of the Dominance Dimension; F and B represent respectively the Forward side (accepting the task orientation and control of established authority) and the Backward side (opposition to the task orientation and control of established authority) of the Task Seriousness Dimension; N and P represent respectively the Negative side (Unfriendly) and the Positive side (Friendly) of the Friendliness Dimension.