“You’re important, Jeremy, but not that important” : personalised responses and equivocation in political interviews Waddle, M and Bull, P http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v8i2.1095 Title “You’re important, Jeremy, but not that important” : personalised responses and equivocation in political interviews Authors Waddle, M and Bull, P Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/58712/ Published Date 2020 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at:
[email protected]. Journal of Social and Political Psychology jspp.psychopen.eu | 2195-3325 Original Research Reports “You’re Important, Jeremy, but Not That Important”: Personalised Responses and Equivocation in Political Interviews Maurice Waddle* a, Peter Bull ab [a] Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom. [b] Department of Psychology, University of Salford, Manchester, United Kingdom. Abstract This study was an assessment of personalised equivocation in political interviews, namely, politicians’ responses to questions which, in lieu of an explicit reply, are directed personally at the interviewer. Twenty-six interviews with recent UK party leaders were analysed in terms of questions, replies, and personalisation. The majority of personalised responses contained elements of criticism, although over a quarter were more amicable.