According to an October 22-24 The Economist/YouGov poll, 51% of Democrats have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush, while only 42% have an unfavorable opinion of him. Journalist Jacob Sugarman calls this “the single most depressing poll of Trump’s presidency.” He implies that our current president is implicated in this result.
George W. Bush told the American people the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. His invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. It resulted in the deaths of 4400 Americans and 268,000 Iraqis at a cost conservatively estimated at $2 trillion. It set off chaos in the Middle East and led indirectly to the formation of ISIS, sponsors of a terrorist threat that continues 14 years later. According to a Gallup poll, only 6% of Democrats had a favorable opinion of Bush when his presidency ended in January 2009. But now a majority of Democrats have a favorable opinion of him. How can we explain this?
Human judgment is context dependent. Today’s temperature will feel warm or cool depending on what the temperature was yesterday. Both assimilation and contrast effects can occur. If today’s temperature is similar to yesterday’s, it may be assimilated to yesterday’s and the two days perceived as more alike that they actually were. However, if there is a noticeable difference between yesterday’s and today’s temperatures, a contrast effect occurs, with the result that today’s temperature feels cooler when it follows a warmer day than when it follows a colder day.
What determines whether assimilation or contrast will occur? Assume we are comparing an object of judgment, called the target, to a standard of comparison. According to the inclusion/exclusion model of Norbert Schwarz and Herbert Bless, if the standard of comparison can be included within the target group, assimilation will occur, and the evaluation of the target will shift in the direction of the standard. However, if the standard cannot be included within the target—that is, if it is excluded—the target will be contrasted with the standard and its evaluation will shift in the opposite direction.
If that sounds complicated, here’s an example. In a 1992 study, Schwarz and Bless encouraged participants to think about a corrupt politician. They used German politicians, but an American example might be Richard Nixon. Participants were then asked to judge the trustworthiness of politicians in general, and the trustworthiness of several specific politicians. In this example, Richard Nixon is the standard by which other politicians are judged. Since Nixon is a member of the category of politicians, he is assimilated to the target group, and politicians in general are evaluated more negatively. However, when participants are asked to judge other politicians, say, Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter, contrast effects occur. Richard Nixon is not Gerald Ford; they are mutually exclusive. If Nixon comes to mind when Ford is evaluated, they will be contrasted and Ford will be seen as more trustworthy than he would have been if the participants had not been thinking about Nixon.
According to an August 2017 survey by the American Psychological Association, a majority (59%) of American adults consider this to be the lowest point in our nation’s history that they can remember. The target of the Economist/You Gov survey was George W. Bush. Let’s assume that Donald Trump’s recent behavior has been very salient to most Americans. Even though respondents were not asked to compare Bush to Trump, he is now the standard to which all other presidents are compared. Since Bush is not Trump, he will be contrasted with Trump. In the survey, 91% of Democrats had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, while 7% had a favorable opinion. Therefore, we can expect Bush to be evaluated more favorably by Democrats than he would have been had Trump not been our president.
The argument here is that Democrats consider Donald Trump to be so corrupt and so incompetent that, while he has a negative effect on the evaluation of politicians in general (an assimilation effect), he has a positive effect on the evaluation of all other specific politicians (a contrast effect). Compared to Donald Trump, any other past president looks good to Democrats, even George W. Bush.
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