Abstract
How do personality traits condition the effects of campaign messages meant to mobilize voters? With two nationally representative US survey experiments, I show that common aggressive metaphors mobilize or demobilize voters depending on their traits. Aggressive metaphorsincreasethe mobilizing impact of motivations to participate among aggressive individuals butdecreasethat impact among low-aggression people. For example, the languagemobilizesstrong partisans with aggressive personalities butdemobilizesstrong partisans low in aggression. This heterogeneity showcases the nuanced power of metaphors in campaigns, reaffirms the importance of personality in political behavior, and reveals the hidden role of aggression in non-violent political behavior for the first time. In practice, theneteffects of aggressive metaphors can be positive, negative, or null depending on average traits in an audience.
Published Version
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