ABSTRACT When journalists accuse politicians of deception and politicians return fire, how do voters decide what to believe? Grounded on truth-default theory and visual primacy theory, this paper reports experiments with stimuli of interviews in which a journalist accuses a politician of deceptive evasion. In Study 1, we manipulate whether the journalist’s allegation is accurate. Voters seem unable to tell, basing their perceptions on the politician’s demeanor. In Study 2 we test the effect of a politician honestly refuting a dishonest journalist. Voters still attend to demeanor, not verbal message content. In Study 3 partisanship, verbal refutation, and nonverbal demeanor interact. Democratic voters respond more favorably to their politician refuting a journalist and are not misled by demeanor like Republicans.
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