Emotional Framing and the Effectiveness of Corrective Information

• In Event: Emotions and Political Psychology

Abstract

Does emotional framing influence the effectiveness of corrective information? Increasing concerns about various forms of misinformation have inspired a research agenda on how to correct false claims. On an optimistic note, research shows that corrective information aimed at debunking false claims generally works in correcting misperceptions, although the magnitude of these effects is often small. On a pessimistic note, research also shows that while corrections work with regard to factual beliefs, other outcomes remain biased. This is important because facts do not speak for themselves, but are interpreted in different ways and information evokes affective responses beyond purely cognitive beliefs. Most relevant to this study, research shows that emotional frames can moralize issues, which makes people less likely to compromise on that issue and may weaken links between factual beliefs and opinions. Within the information environment, there is often an emotional asymmetry between disinformation and corrective information. Whereas the former regularly plays on emotional language and images, the latter is usually presented as neutral facts. While there are several well-known consequences of emotions on information processing, we know much less about the impact of specific emotions in the context of corrective information. Are neutral corrections effective when the misinformation is emotionally framed? Do negative emotions evoked by a piece of misinformation persist even in the face of successful factual correction? Is a correction more successful if it is communicated with an emotional counter-frame?

To investigate these questions, I implement a survey experiment, which allows me to causally identify direct effects of emotionally framed misinformation and its correction. The survey experiment is conducted within a high-quality panel study based on a probability sample of the general population in Germany aged 16 to 75 (N ≈ 4,000). The experiment follows a between-subjects 3 x 3 factorial design manipulating both misinformation (no misinformation, misinformation without emotional frame, misinformation with emotional frame) and corrective information (no correction, neutral correction, correction with emotional counter-frame). Substantively, I investigate the topic of genetically modified (GM) food safety. This is a topic on which scientific consensus and public perceptions differ widely, possibly due to actively disseminated disinformation. As treatments, I show respondents extracts of actual news content on the issue, which includes a reported case of a study claiming to find evidence for negative health impacts of GM food, which was later retracted. To manipulate emotional reactions, I either in- or exclude visual stimuli that have been reported together with the actual study, and which have been shown to have a moralizing effect in previous research. Because this was an actual incidence reported in the media, I do not spread new misinformation, and all respondents receive detailed debriefing information at the end of the survey. As outcomes, I measure respondents’ factual beliefs about the safety of GM food, their opinion about policy restrictions on the use of GM organisms, their integral emotional reactions to GM food, and measures of moral conviction. This variety of outcome measures speaks to recent calls within the maturing misinformation literature to go beyond the predominant measures of factual beliefs and / or attitudes as outcomes.

The findings of this study have implications for at least two research strands. First, the study extends current research on corrective information by investigating the potential of neutral corrective information to work against emotional frames and whether emotionally framed misinformation calls for emotional counter-frames in order for debunking to be successful. Second, they provide further evidence about potential links between emotional frames and individual perceptions of an issue as being one of moral conviction, which may occur even if the factual information evoking the emotion is retracted. Additionally, the study also provides evidence on perceptions of GM food, on which recent and ongoing scientific research provides avenues with large potential benefits, which may be impeded by public resistance.

Author

• Pirmin Stöckle, University of Mannheim