Does Familiarity Breed Esteem? A Field Experiment on Emergent Attitudes Toward Members of Congress

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211073910
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(1) 173–185

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129211073910

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Does Familiarity Breed Esteem? A Field

Experiment on Emergent Attitudes

Toward Members of Congress

Kevin M. Esterling

1

, William Minozzi

2

and Michael A. Neblo

2

Abstract

Canonical theories of democratic representation envision legislators cultivating familiarity to enhance esteem among

their constituents. Some scholars, however, argue that familiarity breeds contempt, which if true would undermine

incentives for effective representation. Survey respondents who are unfamiliar with their legislator tend not to provide

substantive answers to attitude questions, and so we are missing key evidence necessary to adjudicate this important

debate. We solve this problem with a randomized f‌ield experiment that gave some constituen ts an opportunity to gain

familiarity with their Member of Congress through an online Deliberative Town Hall. Relative to controls, respondents

who interacted with their member reported higher esteem as a result of enhanced familiarity, a mediation effect support ing

canonical theories of representation. This effect is statistically signif‌icant among constituents who are the same political

party as the member but not among those of the opposite party, although in neither case did familiarity breed contempt.

Keywords

representation, familiarity, survey research, causal mediation

In modern democracies, representation and accountability

depend on two crucial—yet potentially conf‌licting—

features of constituent attitudes: familiarity and esteem.

Constituents must be familiar with off‌iceholders to hold

them accountable for their actions (Arnold, 1990;Grant

and Rudolph, 2004). Simultaneously, the drive to be

esteemed—that is, to be held in higher regard, ref‌lected in

higher trust, approval and warmer feelings among

constituents—is essential to incentivize faithful repre-

sentation (Fenno, 1978;Madison, 1961). Some scholars

worry these two elements are incompatible—that familiarity,

as the saying goes, breeds contempt (Brady and Theriault

2001;Hibbing 2002;seeMondak et al. 2007,35).Ifthat

were the case, representatives might be reluctant to become

more familiar to wide swaths of their constituents, con-

tributing to the persistent dearth of knowledge about elected

off‌icials, and damaging canonical accounts of democratic

representation (Mansbridge, 2003;Pitkin, 1967).

The idea that familiarity breeds contempt is not un-

contested in the scholarly literature, however. Prominent

studies of the U.S. Congress suggest that, as constituents

learn more about their member of Congress (MC), they

also like them more (Alvarez, 1997;Fenno, 1978;Fiorina

et al., 1987). Indeed, even though Americans routinely

report low approval of Congress as an institution, they

also typically report much higher approval of their own

MC—a well-established f‌inding known as the Paradox of

Congressional Support (Lammers et al., 2021). Thus, it

could be that individual MCs do not face the tradeoff

between familiarity and esteem suggested by other em-

pirical accounts.

Scholars have had trouble resolving this debate be-

cause unfamiliarity presents a diff‌icult measurement

problem. Esteem is typically measured with survey items

such as approval of and trust in the member. Constituents

who are unfamiliar with their representative are more

likely to skip such questions or select a “Don’t Know”

(DK) response. Because of this, our understanding of

whether Americans typically love or typically despise

their MC is based on incomplete information. Drawing

1

Public Policy and Political Science, UC –Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

2

Political Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kevin M. Esterling, Public Policy and Political Science, UC –Riverside,

900 University Ave, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.

Email: kevin.esterling@ucr.edu