---
title: "[WEEK 12 TITLE]"
subtitle: "[WEEK 12 SUBTITLE]"
date: last-modified
date-format: "[Updated ]MMM D, YYYY"
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```{r}
#| label: init
#| echo: false
#| results: hide
#| warning: false 
#| message: false

library(tidyverse)
library(labelled)
library(haven)
library(easystats)
library(texreg)

```



## Why influence and persuasion matter

- Democracy assumes citizens can update their views in response to argument and evidence

  - If minds never change, democratic deliberation is theater
  
  - If minds change too easily, democracy is vulnerable to manipulation

- Two central tensions in the literature:

  - **Minimal effects vs. real persuasion**: Can campaigns, media, and conversations actually move opinions?
  
  - **Deliberation vs. participation**: Does exposure to opposing views produce better or worse democratic citizens?

## Questions for this week

- Can political opinions be durably changed?

- What conditions make persuasion more or less likely?

- Does exposure to cross-cutting views help or hurt democracy?

- What mechanisms underlie successful persuasion — and what does that imply for politics?



# {{< fa lightbulb >}} The Minimal Effects Tradition {.inverse}

## The Columbia Studies

Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet (1944) studied the 1940 presidential election:

- Expected to find large media effects on vote choice

- Instead found that most voters decided early and did not change their minds

- Mass media primarily **reinforced** existing predispositions rather than converting voters

- Coined the term **"minimal effects"**

<!-- ## The Two-Step Flow -->

<!-- Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) proposed that: -->

<!-- - Political information flows from mass media → **opinion leaders** → ordinary citizens -->

<!-- - Interpersonal communication is often more persuasive than direct media exposure -->

<!-- - Opinion leaders are attentive, embedded in social networks, and trusted -->

<!-- - Implication: social context mediates the effects of mass communication -->

## Why Are Effects "Minimal"?

Several mechanisms limit persuasion:

- **Selective exposure**: People consume media that confirms their views (Stroud 2011)

- **Motivated reasoning**: People process new information to defend prior beliefs (Lodge and Taber 2013)

- **Social reinforcement**: Peer networks are often politically homogeneous

- **Partisan identity**: Strong partisans are especially resistant to cross-cutting information (Zaller 1992)

## Zaller's RAS Model

Zaller (1992) offers a systematic account of opinion change:

- Citizens **Receive** information from elites
- They **Accept** it if it is consistent with their predispositions
- They **Sample** from considerations when forming a response

> Political awareness increases exposure to messages, but also increases the ability to resist counter-attitudinal ones

- High-awareness partisans: most exposed, most resistant

- Low-awareness citizens: most persuadable, least reached

## Are Minimal Effects Really Minimal?

A later generation of scholars pushed back:

- Erikson and Wlezien (2012): campaigns matter at the margins — and margins decide elections

- Gerber, Green, and Shachar (2003): get-out-the-vote contact causally increases turnout

- Kalla and Broockman (2018): across hundreds of experiments, campaign persuasion effects average near zero — but exceptions exist

- The debate is not resolved — but the field has moved toward asking **when and how** persuasion occurs, not just **whether**



# {{< fa lightbulb >}} Deliberative Democracy and Cross-Cutting Networks {.inverse}

## The Deliberative Ideal

A core normative tradition in democratic theory holds that democracy requires deliberation:

- Citizens should be exposed to **diverse viewpoints**

- Through reasoned argument, they should update beliefs and develop **mutual understanding**

- Habermas (1984): the "ideal speech situation" — open, equal, reason-giving discourse

- Gutmann and Thompson (1996): deliberation produces legitimate democratic outcomes

## What Are Cross-Cutting Networks?

- A **cross-cutting network** is a social environment where people regularly interact with those who hold different political views

  - Workplace colleagues with different party affiliations
  
  - Mixed neighborhoods or religious communities
  
  - Families with political disagreement

- Contrast: **reinforcing networks**, where social ties share political views

  - Common in partisan media environments and geographically sorted communities

## The Democratic Expectation

Deliberative theorists predict that cross-cutting exposure should:

1. Deepen citizens' **understanding of their own views** by requiring them to defend and articulate their positions

2. Increase **awareness of legitimate rationales** for opposing views

3. Foster **political tolerance** — willingness to extend rights to those with whom one disagrees

4. Ultimately produce more reflective, informed citizens

## Mutz (2002): Testing Democratic Theory

Mutz (2002), "Cross-Cutting Social Networks: Testing Democratic Theory in Practice," *APSR*

- National telephone survey (Spencer Foundation, fall 1996, N ≈ 780) with detailed discussion network items

- Supplemented by a laboratory experiment (N = 82 students)

- Central question: does cross-cutting exposure actually produce the benefits democratic theorists claim?

- Tests three hypothesized benefits: awareness of own-view rationales, awareness of opposing-view rationales, and political tolerance

## Measuring Cross-Cutting Exposure

- Respondents name up to three political discussants and report:

  - How frequently they discuss politics with each person
  
  - Whether that person's views are similar to or different from their own

- **Exposure to dissonant views**: frequency-weighted index of discussion with those holding different political views

- **Exposure to consonant views**: frequency-weighted index of discussion with like-minded others

- Key: these are not zero-sum — more cross-cutting contact does not require less consonant contact

- Only about 11–14% of discussants in the sample hold clearly different views — cross-cutting exposure is rare

## Hypothesis 1: Does Cross-Cutting Exposure Deepen Your Own-View Knowledge?

- Prediction: confronting opposing views forces you to articulate and defend your own positions, sharpening your reasoning

- Measurement: open-ended questions asking respondents to give reasons for their own positions on three issues (welfare federalism, affirmative action, presidential candidate)

- **Finding: No effect.** Cross-cutting exposure is unrelated to the number of rationales respondents can give for their own views

- The null result is informative — it rules out a simple "greater political engagement" explanation for the positive findings below

## Hypothesis 2: Does Cross-Cutting Exposure Build Understanding of Opposing Views?

- Prediction: exposure to different views imparts information about legitimate rationales for positions one does not hold

- Measurement: "Regardless of your own views, what reasons can you think of for [opposing position]?"

- **Finding: Yes, significantly.** Cross-cutting exposure substantially increases awareness of legitimate rationales for opposing views

- Magnitude: those with the highest cross-cutting exposure can generate approximately **two additional rationales** for opposing views, compared to those in fully homogeneous networks

- Effect is specific to **dissonant** contact — consonant contact has a negative coefficient

## Two Pathways to Political Tolerance

Mutz identifies two mechanisms linking cross-cutting exposure to political tolerance:

| Mechanism | Path |
|---|---|
| **Cognitive** | Cross-cutting → awareness of opposing rationales → tolerance |
| **Affective** | Cross-cutting → intimacy within dissonant dyads → tolerance |


## The Role of Perspective-Taking: Experimental Evidence

Mutz's lab experiment randomly assigns subjects to receive rationales for **dissonant**, **consonant**, or no political views on three issues

- Overall group differences in tolerance trend in the right direction but are not significant

- Key moderator: **perspective-taking ability** — the cognitive capacity to entertain others' viewpoints (Davis 1983)

  - Among those **high** in perspective-taking: dissonant exposure increases tolerance by approximately 14% on the scale

  - Among those **low** in perspective-taking: no benefit — may actually counter-argue more intensely

- Cross-cutting exposure benefits tolerance most for citizens already inclined to see things through others' eyes

<!-- ## What Mutz Concludes -->

<!-- - Cross-cutting exposure is **infrequent** in contemporary America — most networks are politically homogeneous -->

<!-- - When it does occur, its democratic benefits flow through: -->

<!--   - Learning that opposing views are grounded in legitimate reasons (*cognitive mechanism*) -->

<!--   - Forming close personal relationships with those who hold different views (*affective mechanism*) -->

<!-- - A **civil orientation toward conflict** — valuing frank expression while caring about social harmony — amplifies the cognitive benefits -->

<!-- - Democracy's tolerance infrastructure depends on citizens being exposed to, and genuinely engaging with, political difference -->

## Group Discussion

- Can you think of a time when talking with someone who disagreed with you changed how you understood their position — even if not your own?

- Does knowing the *reasons* behind an opposing view make you more likely to support others' right to hold it?

- Mutz finds cross-cutting contact is rare. What structures in contemporary life make it rarer or more common?



# {{< fa lightbulb >}} Mechanisms of Persuasion {.inverse}

## How Does Persuasion Work?

Even if effects are small on average, persuasion clearly occurs under some conditions. What drives it?

- **Information provision**: New facts change beliefs (Gilens 2001)

- **Elite cueing**: Partisan cues shift opinions regardless of argument content (Zaller 1992)

- **Framing**: How an issue is described shapes how people evaluate it (Chong and Druckman 2007)

- **Social pressure and norms**: Conformity to perceived group expectations (Gerber, Green, and Larimer 2008)

- **Moral reframing**: Connecting an issue to the values a person already holds

## Information vs. Identity

A key debate in the literature:

- Are opinions driven by **information** (what citizens know)?

- Or by **identity** (who citizens are — partisans, racial group members, etc.)?

- Evidence increasingly favors identity:

  - Providing factual corrections often fails to change beliefs — and can backfire (Nyhan and Reifler 2010)
  
  - Partisan cues can override substantive argument content (Broockman and Butler 2017)

## Framing Effects

Chong and Druckman (2007) distinguish:

- **Equivalence framing**: logically identical information presented differently (classic Kahneman and Tversky)

- **Emphasis framing**: highlighting different considerations or values relevant to an issue — more common in political life

  - "Welfare" vs. "assistance to the poor"
  
  - "Estate tax" vs. "death tax"
  
  - "Undocumented immigrants" vs. "illegal aliens"

<!-- ## When Do Frames Work? -->

<!-- - Frames are most effective when: -->

<!--   - Competing frames are absent or weak -->

<!--   - The frame connects to a value the recipient already holds -->

<!-- - Chong and Druckman (2007): when a strong and a weak frame compete, the strong frame wins — but citizens are not infinitely malleable -->

<!-- - Implication: framing battles are won or lost based on which side's frame connects more deeply to existing values -->

## Contact and Perspective-Taking

Extending Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis to political persuasion:

- Sustained, equal-status contact with outgroup members reduces prejudice

- Conditions that facilitate contact effects:
  
  - Absence of hierarchy between groups
  
  - Cooperative interdependence
  
  - Opportunities for personal acquaintance

- Political implications: does personal contact with political opponents — or with members of stigmatized groups — reduce hostility?

## Enter Personalized Moral Reframing

Traditional canvassing experiments show modest, short-lived attitude change

An extension — **personalized moral reframing** — goes further:

- Canvassers first **listen** to identify which moral values a voter holds

- They then **reframe** the persuasive appeal in terms of those specific values

- Grounded in moral foundations theory (Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009)

- Kalla, Levine, and Broockman (2022) test this approach on a highly contested issue: abortion access in Maine



# {{< fa lightbulb >}} Kalla, Levine, and Broockman (2022) {.inverse}

## Review

Take a few minutes to review your notes on Kalla, Levine, and Broockman (2022)

- What is the research question?
- What is the theoretical framework?
- What is the design?
- What are the results?

## Background: The Challenge of Persuasion

- Organizations seeking to change citizens' minds or mobilize them face substantial barriers in the contemporary United States

- Many have given up on persuasion, focusing instead on turning out voters who already agree with them

- **Moral reframing** (Feinberg and Willer 2015): framing a position as consistent with individuals' own moral values can strengthen or change those views

  - Example: environmental conservation framed around "purity/sanctity" is more persuasive to those who hold that value

- **Core problem**: enormous heterogeneity in citizens' values — it is difficult to predict from available data which moral foundations matter to whom

## The Solution: Personalized Moral Reframing

Kalla, Levine, and Broockman (2022) test a strategy that resolves this problem:

- **Listen first**: during an interpersonal conversation, identify which moral values the person actually expresses

- **Tailor the appeal**: reframe the cause in terms of those specific values

- Interpersonal conversations — door-to-door canvassing, phone calls, workplace discussions — are well-suited to this strategy because persuaders can hear the values before speaking

- Neither moral reframing *of any kind* in a field context, nor personalized moral reframing specifically, had been tested before this study

## Research Question

Can personalized moral reframing in door-to-door canvassing:

1. **Increase support** for abortion access (policy attitudes)?

2. **Increase interest** in taking pro-abortion political action (action-taking)?

3. **Decrease stigma** toward women who have abortions?

- Abortion is explicitly chosen as a **hard test**: attitudes are deeply crystallized, partisan disagreement has been high for decades, and most citizens see their position as tied to a core moral value

## Design: Field Experiment in Maine

- Partnership with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE), summer 2018 — when advocates feared a new Supreme Court majority might overturn *Roe v. Wade*

- Registered voters in three Maine counties recruited via mail (N = 112,010) to an ostensibly unrelated online survey

- Baseline respondents (N = 3,348) randomly assigned to treatment or placebo

- **Treatment**: personalized moral reframing canvass (~11.8 minutes on average)

- **Placebo**: canvassing conversation about Medicaid expansion in Maine

- Individuals who answered the door (N = 1,034) recruited to follow-up surveys at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months

## Moral Foundations Theory

Canvassers trained in moral foundations theory (Graham, Haidt, and Nosek 2009):

| Foundation | Core Concern |
|---|---|
| Care/Harm | Protection from suffering |
| Fairness/Cheating | Equal treatment, justice |
| Loyalty/Betrayal | Commitment to family and group |
| Authority/Subversion | Deference to tradition, hierarchy |
| Sanctity/Degradation | Purity, bodily integrity |

- After the study, canvassers reported that voters most often expressed the **loyalty** and **care** foundations

- The goal: identify the bridge between the voter's expressed values and the case for abortion access

## How Personalized Moral Reframing Works in Practice

1. Canvasser asks the voter to share experiences that shaped their views on abortion

2. As the voter speaks, canvasser listens for which moral foundation is being expressed

3. Canvasser shares their own story, **explicitly naming the shared moral value** (e.g., "Just like you, I value loyalty to my family...")

4. Canvasser asks what the experience should be like for a woman who decides to end a pregnancy

5. Canvasser argues for abortion access using **the voter's own moral language** (e.g., "Women who decide to end their pregnancies should be treated fairly, like any other medical decision")

6. Voter invited to reflect; those who express support are asked to contact their elected officials

## Outcomes Measured

Three preregistered outcome indexes, all standardized (mean 0, SD 1):

- **Action-taking index**: willingness to take five specific actions in the next month (accompany someone to an abortion clinic, write to Congress to support access, protest *outside* a clinic [reverse-coded], etc.)

- **Policy attitudes index**: eleven questions about when abortion should be allowed during pregnancy and Maine laws governing abortion procedures and insurance coverage

- **Stigma index**: five questions about the morality of abortion and a feeling thermometer toward women who have had abortions

## Results: Action-Taking

The strongest and most consistent effects are on action-taking interest:

- 1 week post-canvass: **d = 0.19** (p < .001) — large, significant effect

- 1 month post-canvass: **d = 0.11** (p = .04) — effect persists

- 3 months post-canvass: d = 0.08 (p = .13) — decays to nonsignificance

- Effects consistent across items, and especially strong for:

  - Willingness to accompany someone to an abortion clinic
  
  - Willingness to write to Congress in support of abortion access

- Effects do not differ significantly depending on whether the canvasser had personally had an abortion

## Results: Policy Attitudes and Stigma

- **Policy attitudes**: barely significant at 1 week (d = 0.061, p = .054); effect decays in follow-up waves

  - Stands in contrast to the precise null results from Broockman et al. (2017)

- **Stigma**: no significant effect; point estimates are positive but indistinguishable from zero

- **Planned Parenthood favorability**: significant increase (d = 0.11, p = .001), though also appears to decay

## Summary of Results

| Outcome | Effect at 1 Week | Durability |
|---|---|---|
| Action-taking interest | Strong (d = 0.19) | Significant at 1 month; decays at 3 months |
| Policy attitudes | Marginal (d = 0.061, p = .054) | Short-lived |
| Stigma toward women | Null | — |
| PP favorability | Moderate (d = 0.11) | Short-lived |

- The clearest success is in **motivating supporters to act**, not in converting opponents

- Even on a highly crystallized issue, moral reframing can shift behavioral intentions

## Why Does Action-Taking Respond More Than Policy Attitudes?

Several possible interpretations:

- Policy attitudes on abortion are among the most entrenched positions in American politics — accumulated over years of partisan signaling and personal moral commitment

- Action-taking interest is a lower-commitment behavioral intention — it requires aligning with existing values, not abandoning them

- Moral reframing may work best at **activating** latent sympathies rather than **reversing** settled positions

- Effect decay after three months suggests the value salience fades once the conversation ends — attitude change is not durably encoded

## Caveats and Limitations

- No treatment condition *without* personalized moral reframing — the causal mechanism cannot be definitively established, only inferred by comparison with Broockman et al. (2017)

- Maine is 95% non-Hispanic white — limits generalizability, particularly on a highly gendered issue where race may interact with attitudes and stigma

- Effects decay after three months, perhaps as the salience of the named values for subjects' abortion attitudes recedes

- Future research should: replicate on other issues, collect behavioral (not just survey) outcomes, and record which moral frames voters actually articulate

## Group Discussion

- Why might it be easier to shift action-taking interest than policy attitudes?

- What does it mean for democratic persuasion that the most effective approach requires *listening* before *speaking*?

- What are the ethical implications of identifying a voter's moral values and then deliberately using them to advance a political cause?



<!-- # {{< fa lightbulb >}} Bringing It Together {.inverse} -->

<!-- ## What Have We Learned? -->

<!-- | Question | Finding | -->
<!-- |---|---| -->
<!-- | Are political attitudes fixed? | No — but change is hard and often short-lived | -->
<!-- | Do cross-cutting networks help democracy? | Partially — awareness of opposing rationales ↑, tolerance ↑ | -->
<!-- | What mechanisms drive persuasion? | Identity, framing, moral values — rarely just information provision | -->
<!-- | Can moral reframing shift behavior? | Yes — especially action-taking; policy attitude change is harder | -->

<!-- ## A Three-Level Framework -->

<!-- Influence operates at multiple levels: -->

<!-- 1. **Cognitive**: information, frames, elite cues — what people know and how they categorize it -->

<!-- 2. **Affective**: empathy, contact, moral resonance — how people *feel* about issues or outgroups -->

<!-- 3. **Social**: norms, networks, identity — what people think others believe and expect of them -->

<!-- - Most campaign communication targets Level 1; the most durable persuasion may require Levels 2 and 3 -->

<!-- ## Cross-Cutting Exposure and Structured Dialogue -->

<!-- - Mutz (2002): passive cross-cutting exposure in everyday networks improves **understanding of opposing views** and **political tolerance** — via cognitive and affective mechanisms, moderated by perspective-taking ability -->

<!-- - Kalla, Levine, and Broockman (2022): active, personalized moral reframing in structured conversations shifts **behavioral intentions** — and to some extent policy attitudes — even on highly crystallized issues -->

<!-- - Together, they suggest the **mode of engagement** matters enormously: -->

<!--   - Passive exposure to diverse networks → legitimacy, tolerance -->

<!--   - Active listening and moral bridging → motivation to act -->

<!-- ## Implications for Polarization -->

<!-- - If cross-cutting exposure is rare and declining... -->

<!--   - Citizens in homogeneous networks will understand less about why opposing views are legitimate -->

<!--   - Political tolerance erodes as the perceived legitimacy of opposing positions declines -->

<!-- - Levendusky (2009): elite polarization has sorted the mass public, shrinking the pool of cross-pressured citizens -->

<!-- - This makes the conditions for Mutz-style passive deliberation increasingly rare — and Kalla-style active moral engagement increasingly necessary -->

<!-- - But intensive personalized canvassing cannot substitute at scale for the civic infrastructure of cross-cutting social contact -->



<!-- # {{< fa lightbulb >}} Summary {.inverse} -->

<!-- ## Summary -->

<!-- - The **minimal effects** tradition showed that mass media rarely converts — it more often reinforces predispositions -->

<!-- - **Cross-cutting networks** (Mutz 2002) produce the awareness of opposing rationales and political tolerance that deliberative democracy requires — operating through cognitive and affective mechanisms, moderated by perspective-taking ability -->

<!-- - **Persuasion mechanisms** include information, framing, elite cues, and moral reframing — with evidence that aligning messages with individuals' own moral values can shift behavioral intentions even on contested issues -->

<!-- - **Personalized moral reframing** (Kalla, Levine, and Broockman 2022) demonstrates that listening for — and speaking to — citizens' own moral foundations can increase action-taking interest even when pure policy attitude change remains difficult -->

<!-- - Persuasion is possible, but it is **conditional**: it depends on the mode of exposure, the degree to which the message connects to existing values, and the outcome being targeted -->



<!-- # References -->

<!-- ## References -->
