Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980-2000

Do individuals' assessments of the president's integrity consistentlyaffect their evaluations of his job performance? Previous researchsuggests that they might, but extant studies typically do notdirectly examine the effects of these assessments. Those thatdo have examined only a few time points, leaving the questionof whether integrity assessments consistently affect approvalacross presidencies unresolved. Further, they do not examinethe effects of integrity on Bill Clinton's approval after theLewinsky scandal, a time when many argued that integrity assessmentswere irrelevant to evaluations of his job performance. Thisstudy examines the effects of integrity assessments on approvalof four presidents using 10 surveys from 1980 to 2000. Integrityassessments are found to influence approval throughout the period,although the magnitude of their effect varies somewhat. Further,integrity assessments affected approval for Clinton in aboutthe same way they shaped approval for previous presidents. Althoughmost studies of presidential approval focus on the economy andforeign affairs, these results suggest that evaluations of thepresident's job performance are in part evaluations of the presidenthimself. However, more politically substantive factors exertfar greater influence on approval. Therefore, approval is tiedto far more than just good character, which reflects favorablyon the quality of the public's evaluations of their presidents.