SC Connecticut News

A recent study by Yale political scientist Joshua L. Kalla reveals that political professionals are not significantly better than the general public in predicting which campaign messages effectively influence voters. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved evaluating 172 campaign messages on 21 political issues such as marijuana legalization, student debt cancellation, and border security.

Kalla and his coauthors from the University of California, Berkeley—David E. Broockman, Christian Caballero, and Matthew Easton—assessed how well political practitioners and laypeople could foresee message effectiveness. They found both groups performed only slightly better than random guessing.

"We found that neither political practitioners nor the mass public are particularly accurate in predicting which persuasive messages are more effective than others," stated Kalla. This indicates that those who craft political messaging might not have reliable instincts about what resonates with voters.

The study gathered its data from sources like voter guides and social media posts from notable politicians. For instance, one message supporting cannabis legalization highlighted a Gallup poll showing 66% support for making marijuana legal for adults.

In their methodology, researchers conducted a large-scale survey experiment involving 23,167 participants divided into treatment and control groups to measure message efficacy through a total of 67,215 observations. Following this experiment, they had 1,524 political practitioners and 21,247 laypeople predict message effectiveness.

Results showed that experience or expertise among practitioners did not lead to better predictions compared to laypeople's assessments. Both groups overestimated persuadability relative to initial survey results.

Kalla suggests that instead of relying solely on intuition, political professionals should incorporate data-science techniques when evaluating potential messages. "The main takeaway here is that political practitioners have tools available to help them identify effective messages without having to rely on their gut feeling," he remarked.

This study highlights an opportunity for campaigns to enhance message strategy using evidence-based approaches rather than conventional instincts alone.