Cues that Matter: How Political Ads Prime Racial Attitudes During Campaigns

TLDR

Elites can exploit preexisting issue–group linkages to shift citizens’ decision criteria, and subtle racial cues in campaign communications may activate racial attitudes that reshape mass political decision making, yet the precise psychological mechanism and the range of effective implicit cues remain empirically unverified. We tested whether subtle racial cues embedded in political advertisements prime racial attitudes as predictors of candidate preference by making them more accessible in memory. The study used an experiment to assess how embedded racial cues affect memory accessibility and thereby candidate preference. Results demonstrate that a wide range of implicit race cues prime racial attitudes, with cognitive accessibility mediating the effect, while counter‑stereotypic cues implying black deservingness dampen priming, indicating that the meaning of the visual/narrative pairing—not merely black imagery—triggers the effect.

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that elites can capitalize on preexisting linkages between issues and social groups to alter the criteria citizens use to make political decisions. In particular, studies have shown that subtle racial cues in campaign communications may activate racial attitudes, thereby altering the foundations of mass political decision making. However, the precise psychological mechanism by which such attitudes are activated has not been empirically demonstrated, and the range of implicit cues powerful enough to produce this effect is still unknown. In an experiment, we tested whether subtle racial cues embedded in political advertisements prime racial attitudes as predictors of candidate preference by making them more accessible in memory. Results show that a wide range of implicit race cues can prime racial attitudes and that cognitive accessibility mediates the effect. Furthermore, counter-stereotypic cues—especially those implying blacks are deserving of government resources—dampen racial priming, suggesting that the meaning drawn from the visual/narrative pairing in an advertisement, and not simply the presence of black images, triggers the effect.