Replication Data for: How Political Content in 𝘜𝘴 𝘞𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘭𝘺 Can Reduce Polarized Affect Toward Elected Officials

Replication dataset and Stata do file of models reported in \"How Political Content in Us Weekly Can Reduce Polarized Affect Toward Elected Officials.\" Abstract: Politicians invest a lot of energy into managing their image, with the hopes that the public views them in favorable ways. In sharing details about themselves, elected officials hope to be seen as people, not just politicians. Are such efforts successful? I explore this using an experiment inspired by a column in the celebrity entertainment magazine Us Weekly. I find that politicians who share nonpolitical autobiographical details about themselves secure warmer evaluations from the public. Reading this kind of personalizing information can also contribute to ratings of elected officials that are less polarized by partisanship. While personalizing information boosts favorability toward politicians across party lines, members of the opposing party are particularly likely to report warmer affect toward the politician they read about. This suggests that this kind of soft news coverage has the potential to depolarize partisan evaluations of politicians.