Recruiting Values for Opinion

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This project examines how communicators influence opinion on political issues by recruiting social values. Values serve as important sources of opinion by providing enduring standards with which citizens can evaluate public policies. Much of the research on values does not, however, adequately address the political and psychological dynamics by which values influence attitudes. The association between social values and political issues is the object of contentious public debate; political communicators compete to construct perceived linkages in public's mind between certain issues and values. Because controversial issues often bring two or more esteemed values into direct competition, partisans also try to influence the public's prioritization of competing values. This project focuses on the tactics that communicators use to recruit values, and will also examine the impact of such tactics on individual political attitudes.This project will examine five separate value recruitment tactics. The communicator makes a straightforward claim that a value is relevant to a particular issue, e.g., Peace is patriotic. Communicators can also offer analogies between the target issue and a familiar issue with clear value referents. So, for example, those objecting to new Internet security measures might compare the regulations to wiretapping to make privacy values seem especially relevant. The communicator might also offer social and behavioral cues as a way of tarnishing the values recruited by the opposing side. In so doing, the communicator seeks to associate the opponent's values with disreputable social groups or unsavory behavior. In value bolstering, the communicator seeks to magnify the value's esteem by linking it to other values, such as patriotism or religiosity. Finally, the communicator may redefine or relabel a value. A call for equal rights, for example, might be relabeled as a demand for special rights; alternatively, equality might be defined narrowly as is equal opportunity, rather than unequal outcomes. To provide a comprehensive examination of the variety and impact of value recruitment, this project incorporates case study, content analysis, and experimental designs. In the case studies and content analyses, value recruitment will be examined over the course of actual public controversies. The case studies will include interviews with the leaders of political organizations to examine how the groups incorporated social values into their public campaigns. The content analysis will examine how value recruitment tactics vary across issues. The experimental work will examine the effects of value recruitment on individual political attitudes. The PI will also examine how individuals come to perceive the relevance of certain values for specific controversies, and how they judge the relative importance of competing values. This research's broad impact and scientific contribution centers on the added insight this award will bring to the extant literature in political science and social psychology on the effects of values on public opinion. It will provide more complete information about the role of social values in public debate over political controversies. It will also contribute to a better understanding of the individual psychological processes linking values to attitudes.