See no difference? Political Sophistication and Party Similarity as Conditions of Candidate Effects on Vote Choice

Several studies on the personalization of voting behavior consider the relationship between the political sophistication of a voter and the effects of candidate evaluations on vote choice. As candidate evaluations can serve as a heuristic that compensates for missing information, one would expect politically sophisticated voters to refrain from using these cognitive shortcuts in their voting decisions since they should have sufficient cognitive abilities and motivation to make a decision. However, the evidence to date is inconclusive, with studies finding candidate effects on vote choice irrespective of the level of individual political sophistication. Why is this the case? I argue that perceiving parties as indistinguishable increases the difficulty of the voting decision to such an extent that even politically sophisticated voters are more likely to rely on candidate evaluations as a cognitive shortcut to make a choice. I utilize the MODE model, a dual-mode model explaining information processing and the attitude-behaviour relationship. Using cross-sectional survey data on Germany between 2011 and 2017, I estimate alternative-specific conditional logit models explaining vote choice to investigate this relationship. I find higher levels of political sophistication are associated with a stronger effect of candidate evaluations on vote choice for voters who see no differences between political parties. These findings further our understanding of the political psychology of vote choice and complement previous research on the individual-level moderators of candidate effects on vote choice.