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Based on recent technological advances, campaigners and political actors can use psychographic-based political marketing. Yet, empirical evidence about its effectiveness is still very limited. Based on self-congruity theory, a pre-registered experiment (N = 280) investigated the persuasion effects of personality-congruent political microtargeting on the attitude toward the political party and voting intentions of citizens. More precisely, the focus was on the thinking vs feeling personality dimension (MBTI), and it was tested whether this personality "interacts" with exposure to a matching advertising appeal: rational vs. emotional political ad. To do so, two different methodological approaches were used: 1) a machine learning approach; 2) a self-report survey measure of personality. Results revealed significant "congruence effects" between personality and ad appeal, and showed that perceived ad relevance was serving as the underlying mechanism (mediator). However, these results were only found when the self-report measure of personality was used. When the algorithmic approach was used, no significant results were found. These findings feed into timely societal, methodological, and theoretical contributions. • This study investigated the effects of personality-congruent political microtargeting. • The focus was on the thinking vs feeling personality dimension, and the rational vs. emotional political ad appeal. • Two methods were used: 1) a machine learning approach; 2) a self-report approach. • Interaction effects were found between personality and ad appeal, with perceived ad relevance as mediator. • Results were only found with the self-report measure; however, there was a significant agreement between both approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political deepfakes are regarded as an urgent threat to democracy. However, we know little about how different degrees of deception in deepfakes affect recipients' credibility perceptions and the delegitimization of the target of the deepfake. Against this backdrop, we conducted a comparative experiment in the US and the Netherlands (N = 1187) to map the effects of domestic and foreign political deepfakes delegitimizing a prominent Democrat politician. Key findings illustrate that a hyper-realistic deepfake with plausible manipulation of content is perceived as substantially more credible than deepfakes with implausible content manipulation. However, implausible deepfakes have a stronger effect on delegitimizing the depicted politician. We also show that higher scores on a cognitive reflection test correspond to a lower credibility rating for deepfakes. Our findings demonstrate that political deepfakes do not have to be rated as credible to delegitimize established politicians and suggest that analytical thinking may enhance resilience toward deepfakes. • This study experimentally tests the effect of deepfakes with different levels of plausibility in content manipulation. • Findings show that a deepfake with plausible content manipulation is perceived as substantially more credible. • Implausible deepfakes, deviating more from the politician's ideology. have a stronger delegitimizing effect. • Findings demonstrate that political deepfakes do not have to be rated as credible to delegitimize established politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]