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The study examined the perceptions of political candidates (male and female) who make negative statements about the personality and integrity of their political opponents. Male and female participants (Sex of Participant factor) indicated their impressions of a male or female political candidate (Sex of Candidate factor) who either attacked or did not attack the character of his/her opponent (Attack factor) in a political leadership debate. Participants who read a speech given by a candidate of their own gender tended to rate the candidate as having greater integrity when the candidate attacked his/her opponent than when he/she did not. When judging a candidate of the opposite gender, participants tended to rate the candidate who attacked his/her opponent as having less integrity than a candidate who did not attack his/her opponent. Results are discussed with regard to the impact that aggressive campaign tactics can have on voter perceptions, and how similarity between voters and candidates may affect perceptions of such tactics.

Individuals are increasingly turning to health influencers on social media for advice about nutrition, exercise, wellness, and more. This study addressed the impacts of two mechanisms of social influence—source credibility and parasocial interaction—on intent to follow health influencers. An online experiment of 202 participants was conducted to compare a celebrity health influencer and a micro-celebrity health influencer on Instagram. Results showed the micro-influencer had higher source credibility and parasocial interaction. A mediation model detected an indirect relationship between influencer and intent to follow, with parasocial interaction as the mediator. This implies that health communicators who want to increase their social media followers feature down-to-earth influencers who inspire familiarity and desire to learn more about the influencer.