Moral Rhetoric, Extreme Positions, and Perceptions of Candidate Sincerity

Most Americans believe that politicians do not try to keep their campaign promises. This deep level of cynicism threatens to break a fundamental link in representation and undermines the legislative process. If candidates cannot credibly convey their positions, then voters will not trust them to enact policies. Yet, we know little about the strategies politicians might take to convey the sincerity of their claims. We argue that politicians can signal sincerity by justifying their stances in moral terms or by taking more extreme positions. Across three experiments, our results suggest that moral justifications tend to enhance perceived sincerity, while extreme positions do not. In a fourth study, we show that extreme stances increase polarization in candidate evaluations, but moral justifications do not. Taken together, our findings suggest that moral justifications are a useful strategy to reduce cynicism without contributing to rising levels of polarization.