A new study suggests that individuals whose candidate lost an election use pro-attitudinal media to repair their identity or engage in information utility behaviors by seeking out counter-attitudinal information to learn about the opposing party following their win.

The findings by University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) doctoral student Eliana DuBosar, UFCJC Public Relations Associate Professors Jay Hmielowksi and Myiah Hutchens and Kent State University School of Emerging Media and Technology Director Michael Beam were featured in “Celebrating Wins, Lamenting Losses in the Aftermath of Presidential Elections” published in the Journal of Media Psychology on Oct. 6.

The authors examined media use in the aftermath of the 2004, 2012 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections to test whether members of the party that won the election “basked in reflected glory” (BIRG) or if the members of the losing party “cut off reflected failure” (CORF) and avoided media content.

According to the authors, “Our paper examined people’s information-seeking behaviors following U.S. presidential elections. Specifically, we tested four competing hypotheses to see whether people engage in BIRGing, CORFing, information utility, or identity repair-driven information seeking. The results across three data sets revealed that people seek out supportive information when their preferred candidate wins an election. Moreover, we found evidence that this effect was stronger among liberals and Democrats who thought Biden would win the 2020 election.”

They add, “We also examine whether individuals whose candidate lost use pro-attitudinal media to repair their identity or engage in information utility behaviors by seeking out counter-attitudinal information to learn about the opposing party following their win. Using two waves of survey data from the 2004, 2012, and 2020 US presidential elections, we find support for the BIRGing hypothesis. However, we did not find support for any of the hypotheses associated with losing the elections.”

Posted: October 9, 2023
Category: College News, Student News
Tagged as: Eliana Dubosar, Jay Hmielowski, Journal of Media Psychology, Myiah Hutchens, Presidential Elections