Replication Data for: Projection in the Face of Centrism: Voter Inferences about Candidates’ Party Affiliation in Low-information Contexts

When are voters more likely to project their own political position onto a candidate for office? We investigate this question by examining the assumed partisanship of a (self- declared) centrist politician, using data from a survey experiment fielded in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In doing so, we build on the social categorization model as well as recent U.S.- focused political science research on projection and ingroup/outgroup racial divides— extending our analysis to incorporate racial and class similarities/differences across three countries where these divides likely vary in salience. We thus seek: (1) to contribute to research on the inferences citizens draw in nonpartisan elections and low- information contexts generally and (2) to highlight some potential methodological complications of using partisanship- less candidates in vignette experiments. Results suggest that even in the face of a self- declared centrist, voters from across the political spectrum tended to assume shared partisanship in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Examining projection by ingroup/outgroup divisions indicated that class appears to shape projection across all three countries, but that the racial divide only mattered in the United States. Finally, we also find evidence of counterprojection toward outgroup members— but once again only in the American context.选民何时更倾向于将自身政治立场投射到公职候选人身上？本研究依托在加拿大、英国及美国实施的调查实验数据，针对（自我宣称的）中间派政客的预设党派立场展开探究。本研究立足于社会分类模型，同时借鉴近期聚焦美国的、关于投射效应与内群/外群种族分歧的政治学研究成果，将分析范畴拓展至三个此类分歧凸显程度或存在差异的国家，纳入种族与阶层的异同维度。据此，本研究旨在达成两大目标：其一，为非党派选举及一般低信息环境下公民所作出的推断行为相关研究提供学术贡献；其二，点明在情境实验（vignette experiment）中使用无党派候选人时可能存在的方法论层面潜在问题。研究结果显示，即便面对自我宣称的中间派政客，加拿大、英国与美国的各政治立场群体选民仍倾向于假定双方党派立场一致。通过内群/外群分歧考察投射效应则表明，阶层因素在三国均会对投射效应产生显著影响，但种族分歧仅在美国才具有实际作用。最后，本研究还发现针对外群成员的反向投射效应证据，但此类现象同样仅出现在美国语境中。