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Framing Changes Ethical Attitudes

[email protected]

5

‘we hypothesized that exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 2

Background

Study 2: ‘Content analyses of environmental rhetoric from both video and print media revealed that such rhetoric resides primarily within the harm/care moral domain’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 4)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 4

Study 3 : read a persuasive message

‘Participants in the harm/care and purity/sanctity conditions read a persuasive message modeled after a newspaper op-ed. These messages utilized words typical of their respective moral domains (Graham et al., 2009). The harm/care message described the harm and destruction humans are causing to the environment and emphasized how important it is for people to care about and protect the environment. Participants in the purity/sanctity condition read about how polluted and contaminated the environment has become and how important it is for people to clean and purify the environment.’

‘[harm/care] ... the harm and destruction humans are causing to the environment and emphasized how important it is for people to care about and protect the environment.’

‘[purity/sanctity] ... how polluted and contaminated the environment has become and how important it is for people to clean and purify the environment.’

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 figure 2

Fig. 2. Results from Study 3: mean proenvironmental attitude as a function of moral-messaging condition and political ideology (liberal = 1 SD below the mean; conservative = 1 SD above the mean). Asterisks indicate significant differences between groups (p < .001). Error bars represent ±1 SEM.
‘Participants then completed a 3-item measure of proenvironmental attitudes (e.g., “It is important to protect the environment”; α = .79), [this is the one reported in the figure here]
... ‘a 5-item measure of support for proenvironmental legislation (e.g., “In general, I would support government legislation aimed at protecting the environment”; α = .91), and a 3-item measure of belief in global warming (e.g., “I believe that humans are causing global warming”; α = .93)’ (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 5)

a twist

might be important later

‘We found parallel results regarding belief in global warming. Conservative participants reported greater belief in global warming when exposed to the purity/sanctity message than to the harm/care [...] or neutral message’ (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 5).

This is puzzling. Why would a message with little or no information about global warming (‘a persuasive message modeled after a newspaper op-ed’) modify beliefs in anthropogenic climate change?

5

‘we hypothesized that exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 2

But can it change how people act?

Kidwell et al, 2013

Effects on behaviour, not just talk
‘we developed tailored persuasive messages that appealed to the individualizing foundations for liberals, based on fairness and avoiding harm to others, and the binding foundation for conservatives, based on duty and an obligation to adhere to authority. We found that these congruent appeals significantly affected consumers’ acquisition, usage, and recycling intentions and behaviors’ (Kidwell et al., 2013).
[(Wolsko et al., 2016) says these results are inconsistent with (Feinberg & Willer, 2013) ! But this is only because Kidwell et al find an effect on liberals too (cf Feinberg 2015 next study)]
These are from Study 4. (Study 2 included extraneous logos &c) ‘However, the “binding” conservative appeal displayed a patriotic image while the “individualizing” liberal appeal displayed a well-known charity (Habitat for Humanity).’

‘You can make a difference by recyling because you know it’s the right thing to do. Your actions can help care for others and allow the greatest good for society. Because of people like you, we can reduce the harm to others and to the environement by recycling. You CAN make a difference

‘You can join the fight by recycling with those like you in your community. Your actions can help us do our civic duty because recycling is the responsible thing to do in our society. Because of people like you, we can follow the advice of important leaders by recycling. You CAN join the fight!’

Extraneous changes too!

Kidwell et al, 2013 figure 4

Kidwell et al, 2013 figure 3

‘STUDY 2: SIMPLE SLOPES OF APPEAL TYPE BY POLITICAL IDEOLOGY ON WEEKLY RECYCLING’

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‘we hypothesized that exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 2

One more example ...

Wolsko et al. (2016, p. figure 5)

Wolsko et al. (2016, p. Experiment 2) found evidence that moral reframing can influence how much people donate to an ‘Environmental Defense Fund’.

5

‘we hypothesized that exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 2

Are there other cases where moral reframing works? THEN: Are there any conflicting results?

Can liberals’ attitudes on typically conservative issues also be changed using a similar ethical framing strategy?

In previous study, lib and con attitudes both changes; but libs went down on environment. Can libs’ attitudes on a typically conservative issue go *up*?
Day, Fiske, Downing, & Trail (2014): no evidence that liberals become more conservative on typically conservative issues when these are framed in terms of harm or fairness (from STudy 1);
... but they do find shifts in conservative participants’ views on typically liberal issuse when these are framed in terms of purity [not shown]
They also find entrenching effects (libs become more typically liberal when typically liberal issues are framed in terms of harm or fairness (and likewise for conservatives))

‘the spare sentence-long, stimuli used in the studies’ (Feinberg & Willer, p. 1667)

Feinberg & Willer (2015, p. 1667) comment on Day et al. (2014): ‘It is possible that the inconsistency of the moral framing effects in these studies owed to the spare sentence-long, stimuli used in the studies.’

Day et al, 2014 figure 1A-B

Can liberals’ attitudes on typically conservative issues also be changed using a similar ethical framing strategy?

Feinberg & Willer, 2015 figure 6 (on Study 6)

Observation 1: The novel feature here is that the issue is a one that conservatives are generally more sensitive to, and changing the moral framing is shifting Liberal’s views. (I think this is important because it shows that the strategy for changing attitudes works for liberals as well as conservatives.)
Obs 2: the basic approach also works for issues other than climate change.
[Aside] Now see that they get essentially the same result when they group people not by their political views but directly by their fairness scores.
caption: ‘Figure 6. The interaction between political ideology and message framing (top panel) and between fairness morality and message framing (bottom panel) on support for making English the official language of the United States (Study 6).’
They computed two fairness scores. ‘we calculated each participant’s average score on the fairness scale and subtracted out the average of the four remaining moral domains. Doing so allowed us to capture each participant’s specific endorsement of the fairness foundation, while accounting for the tendency for some participants to report high levels of endorsement across all the foundations, labeling this mea- sure fairness score—continuous. Second, we used participants’ ranking of the fairness foundation, relative to the other foundations, labeling this measure fairness score—rank.’
The lower panel in this figure shows the interaction with fairness score—continuous

Can liberals’ attitudes also be changed using a similar ethical framing strategy?

Day et al, 2014 : no evidence of persuasion for liberals (but for conservatives)

Feinberg & Willer, 2015 : yes

5

‘we hypothesized that exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 2

Aside: If moral reframing is effective, why isn’t it used more?

From later study (Feinberg & Willer, 2015)
‘Table 1. Frequencies in Which Participants in Studies 1 and 2 Wrote Moral Arguments That Appealed to Their Own Moral Values, Appealed to The Targeted Group’s Moral Values, and Attacked The Targeted Group's Moral Values.’
Note that some participants attack their targets’ morality.
Note yes/no - yes row is for proportions who did fit with conservative morality &c; no row is for proportions who did not fit.
Significance: if one group sees an issue in moral terms and another doesn’t, then it is likely to get framed in terms of the first group’s ethical principles (perpetuates difference).
Instructions (to Liberals in Study 1): ‘Now, we would like you to write a persuasive argument (4-5 sentences) aimed at convincing conservative Americans who oppose same-sex marriage of why they should be in favor of same-sex marriage. Note: In a follow-up study, we will actually present your argument to conservative Americans who oppose same-sex marriage to see if they are persuaded by your argument. Participants who are able to effectively persuade these future study participants will be entered into a drawing for a $50 bonus.’
‘Feinberg and Willer (2015) found that when participants were asked to identify whether a morally reframed argument or a more typical moral argument would be more persuasive to those on the other side of the political spectrum, 64% of liberal participants and 85% of conservative participants correctly selected the morally reframed argument.’ (Feinberg & Willer, 2019, p. 7)

People is bad (unable or unwilling) at shifting moral perspectives.

Feinberg & Willer, 2015 Table 1

Two obstacles to reframing:

Why are people bad at moral reframing?

Without recognizing that one’s political rivals possess different morals, and without a clear understanding of what those different morals are, using moral reframing becomes impossible’ (Feinberg & Willer, 2019, p. 7).

People are less tolerant of differences in moral than in nonmoral attitudes (Skitka et al., 2005).

Summary ...

5

‘we hypothesized that exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 2