Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-zrtmk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-04T22:02:36.274Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complementary or Competing Frames? The Impact of Economic and Public Health Messages on COVID-19 Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2022

Emma R. Knapp ,
Brianna A. Smith Open the ORCID record for Brianna A. Smith [Opens in a new window]  and
Matthew P. Motta Open the ORCID record for Matthew P. Motta [Opens in a new window]
Emma R. Knapp
Affiliation:
Ensign, United States Navy, Washington, DC, USA
Brianna A. Smith*
Affiliation:
United States Naval Academy, Department of Political Science, 121 Blake Rd, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA. Twitter: @drbriannasmith
Matthew P. Motta
Affiliation:
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA. Twitter: @matt_motta
*
*Corresponding author. Email: smithb@usna.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The American reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic is polarized, with conservatives often less willing to engage in risk-mitigation strategies such as mask-wearing and vaccination. COVID-19 narratives are also polarized, as some conservative elites focus on the economy over public health. In this registered report, we test whether combining economic and public health messages can persuade individuals to increase support for COVID-19 risk mitigation. We present preliminary evidence that the combination of messages is complementary, rather than competing or polarizing. When given a message emphasizing COVID-19’s negative health and economic effects in a pilot study, conservatives increased their support for a broad range of risk-mitigation strategies, while liberals maintained high levels of support. A preregistered larger-n follow-up study, however, failed to replicate this effect. While complementary frames may be a promising way to persuade voters on some issues, they may also struggle to overcome high levels of existing polarization.

Keywords

COVID-19framingcomplementary framespublic opinionhealth attitudes
Type
Preregistered Report
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 2023 , pp. 21 - 33
Open Practices
Open data Open materials Preregistered
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This article has earned badges for transparent research practices. For details see the Data Availability Statement.

References

Callaghan, T., Moghtaderi, A., Lueck, J. A., Hotez, P. J., Strych, U., Dor, A., Franklin Fowler, E. and Motta., M. 2020. Correlates and Disparities of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy. Available at SSRN 3667971.Google Scholar
Calvillo, D. P., Ross, B. J., Garcia, R. J., Smelter, T. J. and Rutchick, A. M.. 2020. Political Ideology Predicts Perceptions of the Threat of Covid-19 (and Susceptibility to Fake News About it). Social Psychological and Personality Science 11(8): 1119–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Case, C., Eddy, C., Hemrajani, R., Howell, C., Lyons, D., Sung, Y. H. and Connors, E. C.. 2021. The Effects of Source Cues and Issue Frames During COVID-19. Journal of Experimental Political Science: 1–10. doi: 10.1017/XPS.2021.3 Google Scholar
Chong, D. and Druckman, J. N.. 2007. A Theory of Framing and Opinion Formation in Competitive Elite Environments. Journal of Communication 57(1): 99–118.Google Scholar
Coppock, A. and McClellan, O. A.. 2019. Validating the Demographic, Political, Psychological, and Experimental Results Obtained from a New Source of Online Survey Respondents. Research & Politics 6(1): 2053168018822174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Detenber, B. H., Ho, S. S., Ong, A. H. and Lim, N. W.. 2018. Complementary Versus Competitive Framing Effects in the Context of Pro-environmental Attitudes and Behaviors. Science Communication 40(2): 173–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, J. N. and Bolsen, T.. 2011. Framing, Motivated Reasoning, and Opinions about Emergent Technologies. Journal of Communication 61(4): 659–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, J., Klar, S., Krupnikov, Y., Levendusky, M. and Ryan., J. B. 2021. How Affective Polarization Shapes Americans’ Political Beliefs: A Study of Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Experimental Political Science 8(3): 223–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everett, J. A., Colombatto, C., Chituc, V., Brady, W. J. and Crockett., M. 2020. The Effectiveness of Moral Messages on Public Health Behavioral Intentions During the COVID-19 Pandemic. PsychArXiv.com CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graso, M., Chen, F. X. and Reynolds, T.. 2021. Moralization of Covid-19 Health Response: Asymmetry in Tolerance for Human Costs. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 93: 104084.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, J., Edgerton, J., Naftel, D., Shoub, K. and Cranmer, S. J.. 2020. Elusive Consensus: Polarization in Elite Communication on the COVID-19 Pandemic. Science Advances 6(28): eabc2717.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ho, S. S. 2021. Complementary and Competitive Framing of Driverless Cars: Framing Effects, Attitude Volatility, or Attitude Resistance?. International Journal of Public Opinion Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, J., Yoeli, E. and Rand., D. 2020. Don’t get it or don’t spread it? Comparing self-interested versus prosocially framed COVID-19 prevention messaging. PsyArXiv.com CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knapp, E., Smith, B. A. and Motta., M. P. 2022. Replication Data for: Complementary or Competing Frames? The Impact of Economic and Public Health Messages on COVID-19 Attitudes. Harvard Dataverse, V1. doi: 10.7910/DVN/RLJLWT CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kushner Gadarian, S., Goodman, S. W. and Pepinsky, T. B.. 2020. Partisanship, Health Behavior, and Policy Attitudes in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Plos one 16(4): e0249596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, J. M. 2020a. Do COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Beliefs form a Monological Belief System?. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 53(2): 319–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, J. M. 2020b. Psychological, Political, and Situational Factors Combine to Boost COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Beliefs. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 53(2): 327–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Z. and Balsamo., M. 2021. ‘Great Day for America’: Vaccinated Can Largely Ditch Masks. AP News. https://apnews.com/ Google Scholar
Moniz, P. 2020. How Bad Is It? Elite Influence and the Perceived Seriousness of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 1–9. doi: 10.1017/XPS.2020.45 Google Scholar
Motta, M., Stecula, D. and Farhart, C.. 2020. How Right-Leaning Media Coverage of COVID-19 Facilitated the Spread of Misinformation in the Early Stages of the Pandemic in the US. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 53(2): 335–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Motta, M., Sylvester, S., Callaghan, T. and Lunz-Trujillo, K.. 2021. Encouraging COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Through Effective Health Communication. Frontiers in Political Science 3(630133). doi: 10.3389/fpos.2021.630133 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donnell, C. and Lambert, L.. 2021. About 14 Million in U.S. Get First COVID-19 Shot in August, Up From July. https://www.reuters.com/ Google Scholar
Palan, S. and Schitter, C.. 2018. Prolific.ac—A Subject Pool for Online Experiments. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance 17: 22–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peer, E., Brandimarte, L., Samat, S. and Acquisti, A.. 2017. Beyond the Turk: Alternative Platforms for Crowdsourcing Behavioral Research. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 70: 153–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center 2021. Economy and COVID-19 Top the Public’s Policy Agenda for 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/ Google Scholar
Rutledge, P. E. 2020. Trump, COVID-19, and the War on Expertise. The American Review of Public Administration 50(6–7): 505–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanger-Katz, M., Cain Miller, C. and Quealy, K.. 2021. With Hugs and Haircuts, U.S. Epidemiologists Start Returning (Carefully!) to Everyday Life. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/ Google Scholar
Slothuus, R. and De Vreese, C. H.. 2010. Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Issue Framing Effects. The Journal of Politics 72(3): 630–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Utych, S. M. 2021. Messaging Mask Wearing During the COVID-19 Crisis: Ideological Differences. Journal of Experimental Political Science 8(2): 91–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wise, D. and Brewer, P. R.. 2010. Competing Frames for a Public Health Issue and Their Effects on Public Opinion. Mass Communication and Society 13(4): 435–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Knapp et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RLJLWT
Link
Supplementary material: File

Knapp et al. supplementary material

Appendix

Download Knapp et al. supplementary material(File)
File 39.7 KB