Rethinking Moral Reframing— Partisan Cues versus Moral Frames

• In Event: Partisanship, Affect, and Polarization

Abstract

The moral reframing theory proposes that political arguments can be more persuasive to the opposing ideology if they are framed in the moral values which the opposing side endorses. For example, the theory proposes that conservatives are more likely to support an argument calling for same-sex marriage if that argument is framed in the morals conservatives endorse; vice-versa for liberals. Feinberg and Willer have conducted an extensive series of experiment studies demonstrating the effectiveness of this approach on a diverse series of issues from same-sex marriage, to universal health care, to military spending. In many cases, but far from all, presenting liberal arguments in the language that conservatives prefer—order, stability, purity— is significantly more effective in persuading conservatives than presenting liberal arguments in standard liberal language that emphasizes equality and protection from harm. Similarly, liberals are often more susceptible to conservative arguments reframed in traditionally liberal language.

As compelling as these findings are, though, Feinberg and Willer’s studies lack a key ingredient that is included in usual persuasive political discourse—a partisan source cue. Thus, it remains very much to be seen whether morally reframed language can still be effective when people know that it is nonetheless coming from the opposing party. It is well-established that partisans are less likely to accept an argument if they know it comes from an opposing party and real-world political discourse typically has a partisan/ideological source of some type.

In our previous work, we therefore conducted a study to determine if attaching a partisan source cue to a morally reframed arguments (in this case, original arguments about the politically central issue of taxation) attenuates its ability to influence the opposing ideology. Not only did we find no evidence that the attachment of a partisan source cue made any difference to the persuasiveness of the morally reframed argument, we failed to find evidence that the moral reframing theory worked at all. That is, contrary to Feinberg and Willer’s findings on military spending, same-sex marriage, English as a first language, etc., moral framing had no impact on either liberal’s or conservative’s opinions on the issue of higher taxes on the wealthy.

Our present research, therefore, will present a basic replication and then important extension of Feinberg and Willet’s research to draw firmer conclusions on the efficacy of moral reframing in general, and most importantly, when a source cue is added to a morally reframed argument. To this end, we will take Feinberg and Willer’s exact arguments on English as a national language and on universal health care, but we will also add a fictional Democratic(Republican) member of Congress as the author as a partisan source cue.

Furthermore, as immigration is one of the most salient contemporary political issue, we will create new, morally reframed arguments for and against the consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). If moral reframing is to have a place in how we think about political persuasion, it should, presumably, have an impact on the most contentious current issue. As with the replication issues, we will also present the immigration issue with and without partisan source cues.

This research, therefore, will allow us to have firmer conclusions about moral reframing in a number of key aspects. 1) Does moral reframing (originally tested in the early 2010’s) hold up under a straight replication? 2) Does moral reframing show any efficacy on the most salient issue of contemporary politics. 3) And, most importantly, does moral reframing hold up when a partisan source cue is added to the morally reframed arguments. Regardless of the exact pattern of results to these questions, we believe that the answers will provide important insight into understanding the potentiality, and the limits, of moral reframing as an avenue to political persuasion in the contemporary political context.

Authors

• Logan Graham, North Carolina State University

• Steven Greene, North Carolina State University