In the Loop: Why do negative political fundraising appeals actually work?
If you are a recipient of Democrats campaign donation solicitation e-mails youd be right to assume the world is nearing its end.
But no, its just the end of the last quarter before Election Day.
With Democrats incapable of taking back the House and at risk of losing the Senate, the campaign committees have adopted a Chicken Little approach to fundraising. One message from the Democratic Governors Association even threatened a Dem-pocalypse. E-mail after e-mail foretells terrible outcomes that can only be avoided if you open up your checkbook immediately.
According to our colleague Ed OKeefe, the doomsday e-mails are working. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has outraised its GOP counterpart by roughly $33million this cycle, in part due to online contributions from the e-mails.
But why do they work?
We reached out to several psychologists to see what this tells us about the human psyche. In short, were a negatively inspired bunch.
A variety of research has long shown that people are far more likely to take action to avoid negative events than to produce positive ones, said Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine. Loss is simply more impactful than gain. Loss can even cause trauma, which can permanently alter ones life; there is no equivalent for gain. People know this intuitively, and so do the campaign managers and others whose job it is to manipulate the masses.
University of Nebraska political science and psychology professor Ingrid Haas agreed that negative emotions are very motivating so something like anger might be most effective for getting people to take action or donate money.
But Haas said one way to rouse people with positive feelings is to use messages of hope. (Remember Obama 2008?) Its difficult to sell a message that everything is great, so join the effort to help it stay great. But telling people that things arent as great as they could be, but theres hope for the future could spur action, she said.
Its all about creating an emotional impact, said John Rooney, professor of psychology at La Salle University. People tend to be motivated more by how theyre feeling rather than by their intellect, he said. Rooney believes its less about the tone of the message and more about whether it will arouse emotions.
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In the Loop: Why do negative political fundraising appeals actually work?