Name Recognition Essay

Political candidates, at every level of the political system (both national and local), have a tendency to dedicate significant resources to attempts to imprint their names on the public. Social media, signs, bumper stickers, commercial advertisements, and interviews are only a few of the lengths to which candidates will go to, all in an effort to spread their name. For instance, Although the U.S. presidential elections are still 14 months away, the early phases of the race have drawn unbelievable amounts of attention and even more media coverage. In fact, last week, the Republican party held their second televised debate, drawing the attention of millions of Americans. Not only does this serve as a forum to express political views, but also …show more content…
By identifying cues other than name recognition, they were able to assess and accurately determine the importance of name recognition in electoral decisions. Other cues that were identified within the study included gender, incumbency status, spending, etc. The approach to this study was very deductive—the study started with basic name recognition progressively dials in on it’s importance compared to other cues. Now, the independent variable in each of the studies is going to be name recognition. Who the subjects choose, based on the information disclosed, is the dependent …show more content…
They hypothesized that, in the absence of other cues, it is fairly important. The assumption that there is a direct relationship between name recognition and electoral decision making was proven to exist through their research. Their experiments not only demonstrated that subliminal presentations of a hypothetical candidate's name have significant effects on a voter's choice, but also that the effects are larger in magnitude than anticipated. However, Zam also uncovered that when other cues/factors (race or ethnicity, appearance, or incumbency) are both available and more applicable, name recognition becomes less important. Why? Due to the fact that those factors can influence vote choice directly, name recognition takes a back seat. Also, those factors may reduce reliance upon recognition in directly determining vote