Educated Voters Look Beyond Party Affiliation for Katrina Blame According to Stanford Business School Research

STANFORD, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina`s devastation of New Orleans in 2005 there was
plenty of finger pointing and efforts to place blame. As reported in this
month`s Stanford Knowledgebase, two Stanford researchers who studied the
political aftermath found that while voters tended to place the most blame on
government officials who were not part of their political party, it wasn`t just
a case of following political loyalties.

Most of the 400 individuals surveyed were not blind to other relevant
information about the who, what, when, where, and why of leaders who had fallen
down on the job. Evidence showed that they looked beyond party affiliations and,
said the researchers, are likely to reflect this later in the voting booth.

Neil Malhotra, Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the Stanford Graduate
School of Business, and Alexander G. Kuo, a doctoral student in political
science, asked participants about seven government officials with leadership
roles in the Katrina response. The officials included President George W. Bush,
the directors of homeland security and federal emergency response, plus
Louisiana senators, governors, and mayors. Participants were asked to rank how
much each official should be blamed for the property damage and loss of life
caused by the hurricane disaster.

The respondents were asked about their own political affiliations and level of
education, and were randomly assigned to four groups. Group 1, the control
group, was asked to rate the seven officials without any other information.
Group 2 received each person`s political party affiliation only, while Group 3
received each person`s job title only. Group 4 received both party affiliations
and job titles.

The researchers found that when given officials` party affiliations only,
Democrats tended to place more blame on Republicans, while Republicans blamed
fellow GOP members less. However, when people were given both party affiliations
and the officials` titles, the blame gap narrowed. "People still tended to side
with their own party, but to a significantly lesser degree," explains Malhotra.
"It`s clear that the additional information made them consider another
factor--people`s roles--in assigning responsibility for the mismanagement."

Interestingly, people with less education tended to hold their own party less
accountable than those with more education. While they did use office titles to
be a bit more discerning with their blame attributions, they did not throw away
party allegiances as completely as the highly educated did. "This reinforces the
idea that education is an important component in creating a citizenry that forms
its opinions and makes voting choices in a more sophisticated way," Malhotra
says.

"Overall," he observes, "our results give us reason to be cautiously optimistic
about the capacity of citizens to make unbiased blame attributions, an important
responsibility in democratic systems. People are not the myopic stooges that
some observers make them out to be. They do the best with the information they
have."

The findings underscore the fact that Republican and Democratic leaders cannot
simply count on unconditional support from their own supporters--they still have
to earn votes.

Business can also take a lesson from the study, say the researchers. "While
people may be loyal to a brand, that loyalty can be disturbed when a company or
its leadership comes under fire," Malhotra says.

(This story reports on research at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and
appears in the March 2009 issue of Stanford Knowledgebase, the free monthly
information source for thoughts, ideas and research at the Stanford Graduate
School of Business. To dig deeper, visit:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/knowledgebase.html#katrina.)

Stanford Graduate School of Business
Helen Chang, 650-723-3358
chang_helen@gsb.stanford.edu

Copyright Business Wire 2009