The more you know…? How disclosures, persuasion knowledge training, and political fit impact cognitive processing of targeted political ads

Scholars and policymakers call for disclosures and educational training to enhance citizens’ critical coping with targeted political advertising. Empirically, however, the effectiveness of such measures remains unclear. Contributing to persuasion knowledge research, this study investigates how targeting disclosures, educational training, and political fit activate targeting knowledge and manipulative intent perceptions and how these, in turn, relate to party evaluation. Results from a 2x2x2 between-subjects experiment (N = 513) suggest that all independent variables increased targeting knowledge. Educational training increased manipulative intent perceptions; political fit decreased them. We found no interaction effects. Targeting knowledge positively correlated with party evaluation. Manipulative intent perceptions negatively correlated with party evaluation when political fit was low. We conclude that 1) targeting disclosures benefit targeting recognition, 2) educational training is not needed for recognizing but evaluating targeting, and 3) for both, individuals rely on political fit despite superior alternatives. Lastly, targeting within their voter base may benefit parties.