A common strategy employed by political leaders to win elections is to establish similarity with their constituents. This article extends previous research on this approach in several ways. First, the authors test and confirm the commonly used, but underresearched, political marketing tactic of highlighting similarity with constituents through upbringing characteristics. Second, given the debate about why the similarity-voting effect occurs, the authors aimed to establish causality of the effect. They found that perceived competence and liking both mediate this relationship in the context of similar upbringing. Finally, the positive effect of similar upbringing only holds for those with average and above-average self-perceptions of political skills, meaning that this approach would not be effective for some inexpert voting populations. By understanding the mechanism behind the similarity-voting effect in the context of similar upbringing, in addition to its important caveat, political marketers can approach campaigns in a more informed manner.

中文翻译：

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能力投票：对政治候选人的类似教育如何影响投票选择

A common strategy employed by political leaders to win elections is to establish similarity with their constituents. 本文以多种方式扩展了先前对这种方法的研究。首先，作者测试并确认了常用但研究不足的政治营销策略，即通过教养特征突出与选民的相似性。其次，考虑到为什么会出现相似性投票效应的争论，作者旨在确定这种效应的因果关系。他们发现，在类似的教养背景下，感知能力和喜好都可以调节这种关系。最后，类似教养的积极影响只适用于那些对政治技能具有平均和高于平均水平的自我认知的人，这意味着这种方法对一些不熟练的投票人群无效。