Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Integrity And Presidential Approval, 1980-2000, Brian Newman

Brian Newman

Do individuals' assessments of the president's integrity consistently affect their evaluations of his job performance? Previous research suggests that they might, but extant studies typically do not directly examine the effects of these assessments. Those that do have examined only a few time points, leaving the question of whether integrity assessments consistently affect approval across presidencies unresolved. Further, they do not examine the effects of integrity on Bill Clinton's approval after the Lewinsky scandal, a time when many argued that integrity assessments were irrelevant to evaluations of his job performance. This study examines the effects of integrity assessments on approval …