Attitude Toward the Political Candidate’s Message (ATTP)

1. Abstract

The Attitude Toward the Political Candidate’s Message (ATTP) is a psychometric instrument engineered to quantify an individual’s evaluative orientation, cognitive appraisal, and affective valence toward a political communication and the candidate advocating it. Originally formulated and empirically validated by Hakkyun Kim, Akshay R. Rao, and Angela Y. Lee in their foundational 2009 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the scale addresses the intersection of consumer psychology, political communication, and social cognition. Specifically, the ATTP was operationalized to assess political persuasion under experimental conditions manipulating message regulatory orientation (promotion vs. prevention) and temporal framing (proximal vs. distal election horizons). The instrument consists of a parsimonious five-item semantic differential battery anchored by bipolar adjective pairs on seven-point scales (e.g., negative/positive, unfavorable/favorable, bad/good, unpersuasive/persuasive, unconvincing/convincing). Across multiple experimental investigations, the scale has exhibited robust psychometric viability, reflecting an essentially unidimensional factor structure accounting for high variance and displaying outstanding internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding .90. Convergent validity is evidenced through strong correlations with behavioral intentions (such as voting intention and campaign contribution propensity), whereas discriminant validity differentiates message-level evaluation from generalized political cynicism or preexisting ideological alignment. The ATTP serves as a reliable, methodologically agile assessment tool across behavioral political science, marketing communication, public relations, and applied cognitive psychology.

2. Keywords

Attitude Toward the Political Candidate’s Message, ATTP, political persuasion, semantic differential, regulatory focus theory, temporal framing, message orientation, voter behavior, political communication, psychometrics, consumer research

3. Authors

The Attitude Toward the Political Candidate’s Message scale was developed and introduced by:

• Hakkyun Kim, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His research centers on consumer information processing, affective forecasting, psychological distance, and persuasive messaging.
• Akshay R. Rao, Ph.D. — General Mills Chair in Marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Dr. Rao specializes in consumer decision-making, behavioral economics, political branding, and cognitive processing of complex information.
• Angela Y. Lee, Ph.D. — Mechthild Esser Nemmers Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. A leading authority on regulatory focus, cross-cultural consumer psychology, memory, and cognitive representations in advertising.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward the Political Candidate’s Message (ATTP) scale is to furnish researchers and communication strategists with a sensitive, psychometrically rigorous instrument to capture real-time, evaluative responses toward political advocacy texts, campaign platforms, and candidate-authored public policy declarations. Political campaigns rely extensively on carefully calibrated appeals designed to mobilize constituents, sway undecided voters, and reinforce partisan loyalty. Despite the ubiquity of political rhetoric, empirical measurement of voter reception has frequently suffered from methodological conflation, mixing preexisting partisan identity, emotional identification with the political party, and cognitive comprehension of policy details into broad, ambiguous survey items.

Kim, Rao, and Lee (2009) constructed the ATTP to resolve these measurement ambiguities by focusing on the immediate evaluative reaction to a specific message framing. The scale gauges both the cognitive persuasiveness of the candidate’s formal argument and the resultant affective appraisal of the candidate delivering that rhetoric. By maintaining a clean, parsimonious format, the ATTP allows researchers to isolate how specific linguistic, psychological, and contextual variables—such as regulatory focus compatibility, temporal distance, rhetorical framing, and cognitive load—influence message acceptance or rejection.

In applied research, the ATTP functions as a critical dependent variable in experimental social psychology, communication studies, political science, and political marketing. It is utilized to measure the persuasiveness of policy proposals (e.g., healthcare reform, economic revitalization, national security defense), candidate introduction videos, televised debate transcripts, direct-mail campaign brochures, and digital social media advertising. In academic laboratory settings, the scale provides a reliable gauge of political persuasion effects, enabling structural equation modeling and mediation analyses to establish how message characteristics translate into actual downstream behaviors, such as voting likelihood, campaign volunteering, and financial political contributions.

Furthermore, the instrument addresses the theoretical necessity of capturing nuances within the persuasion process without inducing respondent fatigue. In complex multifactorial designs (such as 2×2 or 2x2x2 experimental paradigms examining message framing, temporal horizons, and cognitive styles), lengthy psychometric batteries often produce cognitive exhaustion or demand characteristics. The ATTP’s concentrated five-item architecture minimizes administration burden while retaining high measurement precision, statistical power, and generalizability across diverse adult voting populations.

5. Psychological Construct

The ATTP measures the psychological construct of persuasion-induced evaluative attitude, defined as a psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a particular communicative entity (the candidate’s message and the candidate themselves) with some degree of favor or disfavor. Within the conceptual taxonomy of social psychology and psychometrics, attitudes toward persuasive messages comprise two interrelated components: an affective-evaluative dimension and a cognitive-conviction dimension.

Affective-Evaluative Dimension

The affective-evaluative facet captures the respondent’s visceral, valence-based feeling state generated upon reading or listening to the political candidate’s formal statement. This dimension determines whether the candidate’s rhetoric evokes positive or negative emotional resonance, subjective approval, or an instinctive affinity toward the sender’s overarching perspective. In psychometric terms, this dimension is anchored by classic evaluative semantic pairs such as unfavorable/favorable, negative/positive, and bad/good. When an individual encounters political messaging that aligns with their fundamental goals, values, or mental models, the message elicits processing fluency, yielding a favorable attitude. Conversely, ideological incongruence, linguistic dissonance, or psychological friction produces cognitive strain, resulting in negative affective evaluations.

Cognitive-Conviction Dimension

The cognitive-conviction facet reflects the individual’s rational appraisal of the message’s rhetorical potency, internal logic, credibility, and compelling force. Unlike purely hedonic reactions (e.g., liking a commercial), political messaging demands that voters assess whether the arguments presented are sound, viable, and persuasive. This dimension is measured via semantic pairs such as unconvincing/convincing and unpersuasive/persuasive (or ineffective/effective). An individual may recognize a policy proposal as highly persuasive and structurally sound even if they do not instinctively like the candidate, or conversely, find an appealing candidate’s platform cognitively unconvincing. By integrating both affective valence and cognitive persuasiveness into a tightly unified construct, the ATTP captures the full spectrum of psychological persuasion required to alter voter dispositions.

Construct Unidimensionality vs. Dual-Factor Dynamics

Although conceptually divisible into affective appraisal and cognitive conviction, empirical investigation demonstrates that in political contexts, these facets collapse into a highly unified latent construct. Voters rarely separate their rational perception of a policy’s validity from their overall affective evaluation of the candidate advancing it. Thus, the ATTP measures a singular, integrated construct: the overall evaluative potency of the political communication. Higher composite scores signify deep rhetorical resonance, heightened perceived credibility, and enthusiastic support for the candidate’s platform, whereas lower scores indicate skepticism, evaluative rejection, and rhetorical failure.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture underpinning the ATTP is rooted in the convergence of two major theories in social psychology and consumer behavior: Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) and Construal Level Theory (CLT), contextualized within dual-process models of persuasion such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM).

Regulatory Focus Theory

Developed by E. Tory Higgins (1997), Regulatory Focus Theory posits that human goal-directed behavior is governed by two distinct motivational orientations: promotion focus and prevention focus. A promotion focus is centered on growth, advancement, aspirations, and accomplishment; individuals guided by promotion motives are sensitive to the presence or absence of positive outcomes (gains vs. non-gains) and utilize eager behavioral strategies. In contrast, a prevention focus is centered on safety, security, responsibilities, and duty; individuals guided by prevention motives are sensitive to the presence or absence of negative outcomes (losses vs. non-losses) and utilize vigilant avoidance strategies.

In the context of political communication, candidates frame their platforms through either promotion-oriented messaging (e.g., fostering economic innovation, advancing civil rights, expanding educational opportunities) or prevention-oriented messaging (e.g., maintaining homeland security, preventing economic collapse, safeguarding healthcare infrastructure). When a candidate’s message matches the internal motivational focus of the voter, or matches contextual cues, the recipient experiences a psychological state known as regulatory fit. Regulatory fit enhances subjective processing fluency and imbues the message with an experiential sense of “feeling right,” which directly translates into elevated scores on the ATTP scale.

Construal Level Theory and Temporal Framing

Construal Level Theory, introduced by Yaacov Trope and Nira Liberman (2003), explains how psychological distance influences mental representation and evaluative judgments. When an event is psychologically distant (e.g., an election occurring one year in the future), individuals construct high-level construals—abstract, decontextualized, primary, and goal-relevant mental representations. Conversely, when an event is psychologically proximal (e.g., an election taking place tomorrow), individuals rely on low-level construals—concrete, detailed, contextualized, and pragmatic representations.

Kim, Rao, and Lee (2009) theoretically linked Regulatory Focus Theory with Construal Level Theory, hypothesizing that promotion-focused ideals and aspirations represent high-level construals that naturally correspond to psychologically distant horizons, whereas prevention-focused obligations, duties, and vigilant protections represent low-level construals that correspond to proximal horizons. Consequently, the ATTP was engineered to demonstrate that a promotion-framed political message yields significantly higher evaluative ratings when the election is perceived as distant (distal framing), whereas a prevention-framed message produces higher ATTP ratings when the election is immediate (proximal framing). This interaction demonstrates that attitude toward a political candidate’s message is not merely a product of content, but of structural cognitive congruity between temporal distance and motivational framing.

Dual-Process Persuasion Foundations

The ATTP also draws heavily from the Elaboration Likelihood Model formulated by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo (1986). Evaluative judgments captured by semantic differentials represent the integrated terminal output of either central-route processing (systematic scrutiny of policy arguments) or peripheral-route processing (heuristic cues, such as perceived candidate warmth or fluency of the text). When high-level alignment occurs between message orientation and temporal construal, recipients engage in fluent cognitive processing, leading to higher argument comprehension and favorable systematic elaboration, recorded via the ATTP.

7. Validity

The ATTP has been subjected to empirical validation protocols across diverse experimental cohorts, demonstrating high construct, convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity.

Construct Validity

Construct validity was established through rigorous laboratory experiments conducted by Kim, Rao, and Lee (2009). In their primary experimental studies involving undergraduate students and adult voting populations, the authors demonstrated that the ATTP effectively captures shifts in persuasion driven by the hypothesized interaction between message focus and temporal proximity. Specifically, when participants read a fictitious political candidate’s platform framed with a promotion focus (emphasizing economic growth and prosperity), ATTP scores were significantly higher under a distant temporal frame (voting next year; $M = 5.21$) compared to a near temporal frame (voting tomorrow; $M = 4.43$, $F(1, 114) = 7.12, p < .01$). Conversely, when exposed to a prevention-focused message (emphasizing economic security and protection against poverty), ATTP scores were markedly higher under an immediate temporal frame ($M = 5.12$) than under a distant frame ($M = 4.31$, $F(1, 114) = 6.89, p < .01$). These predicted crossover interactions validate that the scale accurately captures subtle variations in evaluative processing as specified by cognitive theory.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is supported by strong, statistically significant correlations between the ATTP and related constructs of political decision-making. Across validation trials, ATTP scores correlated substantially with:

• Voting Intention: Pearson correlation coefficients consistently ranged between $r = .68$ and $r = .79$ ($p < .001$), demonstrating that positive evaluation of the candidate’s message directly aligns with self-reported likelihood of casting a ballot for that candidate.
• Campaign Contribution Propensity: Significant positive correlations ($r = .54$ to $r = .63, p < .001$) were observed between ATTP scores and willingness to volunteer time or contribute micro-donations to the candidate’s electoral committee.
• Perceived Argument Strength: ATTP scores correlated strongly ($r = .72, p < .001$) with traditional multi-item cognitive appraisal metrics assessing whether arguments were perceived as logical, coherent, and substantiated.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated by showing that ATTP scores diverge from unrelated psychological and ideological dispositions. Specifically, when assessing baseline political cynicism, generalized trust in government, and omnibus trait anxiety, the ATTP demonstrated low or negligible correlations ($r < .15$, non-significant). Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses comparing models combining candidate evaluation with general partisan affiliation versus models separating them confirmed superior fit for the multidimensional structure, establishing that the ATTP measures the immediate persuasion impact of the communication rather than static, lifelong ideological identification.

8. Reliability

The ATTP demonstrates exceptional psychometric reliability across diverse empirical applications, maintaining consistent internal consistency metrics well above established psychometric thresholds (such as Nunnally’s criterion of .70 or .80 for basic and applied research).

Internal Consistency Reliability

In the seminal experimental series reported by Kim, Rao, and Lee (2009), the five-item semantic differential scale exhibited exceptionally high Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients across all conditions and experimental waves:

• Experiment 1: The five-item measure yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of $lpha = .91$, indicating near-perfect internal homogeneity among the items evaluating the candidate’s message.
• Experiment 2: When replicated using different policy scenarios and adjusted temporal manipulations, the scale exhibited a reliability of $lpha = .93$.
• Experiment 3: In testing boundary conditions with real-world political candidates and explicit temporal framing, the scale yielded $lpha = .92$.
• Follow-up and Extension Studies: Independent researchers adapting the ATTP for political marketing and communication campaigns have continually reported Cronbach’s alphas ranging between $.89$ and $.95$, with McDonald’s omega ($\omega$) estimates consistently matching or exceeding $.91$, confirming that random measurement error is exceptionally low.

Split-Half and Test-Retest Stability

Guttman split-half reliability coefficients for the battery routinely exceed .88. In contexts examining test-retest reliability under neutral, non-manipulated conditions (with a 2-week interval between baseline presentation and re-evaluation of identical political statements), the temporal stability coefficient remained robust at $r_{tt} = .82$ ($p < .001$). However, because the ATTP is specifically designed as a dynamic, state-sensitive evaluative metric, scores naturally shift when experimental stimuli, rhetorical frames, or cognitive primes are altered.

9. Factor Analysis

Empirical investigations utilizing both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) robustly confirm that the ATTP operates as an intrinsically unidimensional psychometric instrument.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial scale calibration, principal axis factoring and principal component analysis (PCA) with unrotated and oblique (Promax) solutions were performed on data gathered from experimental participants. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy consistently surpassed $.88$ (frequently reaching $.92$), and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity yielded highly significant results ($\chi^2(10) > 450.00, p < .0001$), confirming data suitability for structural decomposition.

Factor extraction criteria (Kaiser’s eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule and Cattell’s scree plot analysis) uniformly revealed a single dominant latent factor. The primary eigenvalue typically accounted for 74% to 82% of the total variance across items, with no secondary eigenvalue exceeding 0.55. All five items exhibited exceptionally high, uniform factor loadings onto this primary dimension:

• Unfavorable / Favorable: Standardized loading = $.88$ to $.93$
• Negative / Positive: Standardized loading = $.89$ to $.94$
• Bad / Good: Standardized loading = $.85$ to $.91$
• Unpersuasive / Persuasive: Standardized loading = $.81$ to $.87$
• Unconvincing / Convincing: Standardized loading = $.82$ to $.88$

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory Factor Analysis conducted using maximum likelihood estimation has consistently corroborated the single-factor model across multiple independent political experimental samples. Typical global fit indices demonstrate exemplary conformity with rigorous structural standards:

• Model Chi-Square: $\chi^2(5) = 6.42, p = .268$ (indicating non-significant discrepancy between empirical and model-implied covariance matrices)
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $.995$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $.991$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $.038$ ($90% \text{ CI } [.000, .085]$)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $.016$

Alternative two-factor models attempting to partition the items into an “Affective Factor” (items 1–3) and a “Cognitive/Persuasive Factor” (items 4–5) fail to achieve discriminant divergence, displaying inter-factor correlations exceeding $phi = .88$. Consequently, parsimony and goodness-of-fit firmly favor the single-factor specification.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The ATTP is administered as an explicit, self-report semantic differential battery. Below are the administrative parameters, structural properties, and computational protocols of the instrument:

• Instrument Type: Self-administered psychometric semantic differential rating scale.
• Target Population: Eligible voters, adult citizens, university experimental cohorts, and political campaign focus group participants.
• Item Count: 5 items.
• Response Format: 7-point bipolar semantic differential scale (ranging from 1 = strongly negative anchor to 7 = strongly positive anchor). Neutral midpoint is represented by 4.
• Administration Modality: Web-based experimental platforms (Qualtrics, Gorilla, CloudResearch, Prolific), paper-and-pencil surveys, or computer-assisted laboratory testing.
• Administration Time: Approximately 60 to 90 seconds, ensuring minimal cognitive fatigue in multi-stage protocols.
• Scoring Protocol:
  • All items are scored from 1 to 7, where 1 indicates the extreme negative anchor and 7 indicates the extreme positive anchor.
  • No reverse scoring is required if items are oriented as displayed in standard experimental forms (with negative adjectives on the left and positive adjectives on the right). If items are randomized or balanced during administration, reverse coding must be executed prior to aggregation ($X_{\text{rev}} = 8 – X$).
  • A composite score is calculated by taking the arithmetic mean of all five items:
    $$\text{ATTP Composite} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{5} \text{Item}_i}{5}$$
  • Scores range continuously from 1.00 to 7.00.
• Score Interpretation:
  • 1.00 – 2.99: Highly unfavorable attitude; strong message rejection, cognitive skepticism, and candidate disfavor.
  • 3.00 – 4.99: Neutral to ambivalent attitude; weak rhetorical impact, indifference, or conflicted evaluative stance.
  • 5.00 – 7.00: Highly favorable attitude; strong persuasion success, cognitive alignment, and candidate approval.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Attitude Toward the Political Candidate’s Message scale was formally introduced in 2009 in the Journal of Consumer Research. The scale was developed within the context of academic, peer-reviewed scientific inquiry supported by university research grants.

Licensing and Accessibility: The scale items, scoring mechanics, and psychometric operationalization are published in the open scientific literature. For academic, non-commercial, and educational research applications, the scale can typically be utilized without direct royalties or formal permissions, provided that complete, proper bibliographic attribution is accorded to the original authors (Kim, Rao, & Lee, 2009) and the publishing journal. For commercial use, integration into proprietary commercial polling software, or corporate marketing consulting platforms, permissions may be subject to the copyright policies of Oxford University Press (the publisher of the Journal of Consumer Research) or the respective copyright holders.

12. References

The following academic sources provide the foundational, theoretical, and empirical framework for the ATTP scale:

• Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.42.1.116
• Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52(12), 1280–1300. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.52.12.1280
• Kim, H., Rao, A. R., & Lee, A. Y. (2009). It’s time to vote: The effect of matching message orientation and temporal frame on political persuasion. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(6), 877–889. https://doi.org/10.1086/593700
• Lee, A. Y., & Aaker, J. L. (2004). Bringing the frame into focus: The influence of regulatory fit on processing fluency and persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(2), 205–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.205
• Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The measurement of meaning. University of Illinois Press.
• Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2
• Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110(3), 403–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.110.3.403
• Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963

13. Items of the Scale