Perceiving politicians as true to themselves: Development and validation of the perceived political authenticity scale

Abstract

The authenticity of political candidates receives increasing attention in political and academic discourse. Although being perceived as authentic is seen as a success factor in contemporary political communication, little attention has been paid to how citizens evaluate politicians’ authenticity. The state of research thus lacks a valid instrument to measure citizens’ perceptions of politicians’ authenticity. This article addresses this gap in the literature and proposes a new multidimensional scale of perceived political authenticity. We conducted three consecutive studies to test the instrument’s composition, performance, and validity and present a final 12-item scale. Results from an expert panel and two online quota surveys (Sample 1:N= 556, Sample 2:N= 1,210) show that citizens rely on three political authenticity dimensions to judge politicians’ authenticity: ordinariness, consistency, and immediacy. Factor analyses were used to establish construct validity and demonstrate that the new scale is a robust and reliable measure. Finally, we find that higher perceived political authenticity for specific politicians is positively associated with party identification and the intention to vote for politicians.