Doctoral Dissertation Research: Moral foundation frame effectiveness in sustainable policy introductions

在美国的大部分地区，公众并不认为水资源政策是一个分裂的话题;然而，随着区域水资源的限制越来越接近，水资源需求必须优先考虑，水资源政策很有可能在政治上受到自由主义者和保守主义者的指责，保持不同的立场。水政策传播者最大限度地减少两极分化的能力将影响利益攸关方愿意共同努力解决水问题的程度。研究表明，传播者可以通过有目的地将自然资源挑战与道德立场（如公平、忠诚和伤害）联系起来，从而减少两极分化，这些道德立场在整个政治光谱中产生不同的共鸣。然而，这些研究主要集中在诸如气候变化等问题上，在这些问题上，党派观点已经占据了主导地位，而不是旨在防止党派偏见形成的研究。此外，很少有研究充分模拟了政策出台的竞争环境，公职人员和外部利益集团竞相为公众定义问题，并与社会线索，如发言人的政治派别，表明了党派成员的立场。本项目旨在解决这些差距，实验性评估使用道德框架，以防止在竞争性水资源政策的介绍党派。首先，将使用Rasch模型进行水知识评估。这项评估将与对水的信念的调查相结合，并对潜在选民进行抽样调查。结果将提供一个详细的评估公众的理解基础水科学和区域水问题，指出水的分主题，从两极分化可能发展，并确定来源选民信任的水信息。基于这些发现，研究的第二部分将使用实验设计来模拟竞争政策的引入。传达价值优先的政策框架的两个方面将进行评估：通过语言和沟通者的身份，作为党派决策的道德基础。此外，消息接收者的特点，温和的框架效应将进行评估，包括政治自我认同和参与者的水知识，使用第一部分开发的评估测量。从这项研究中，将创建一个模型，描述了框架刺激的影响和消息接收者的调节特性如何影响公民层面的可持续政策决策在竞争条件下。这项研究将澄清道德基础框架约束分裂的条件下，潜在的分裂政策，并提供更完整的理解，在何种程度上非竞争性道德基础框架的研究设置现实的期望框架的有效性，在应用政策情景。研究结果将被用于制定一系列关于区域水挑战的出版物，以提高水科学素养并促进知情的公民决策。研究成果还将发表在水传播者指南中，并通过水学校与区域决策者分享，以帮助政府官员和其他社区领导人指导富有成效的水政策讨论。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Across much of the United States, the public does not consider water policy a divisive topic; however as the limits of regional water resources are approached and water demands must be prioritized, there is high potential for water policy to become politically charged with liberals and conservatives maintaining divergent positions. The ability of water policy communicators to minimize polarization will affect the degree to which stakeholders are willing to work together toward water solutions. Research indicates that communicators can reduce polarization by purposefully framing natural resources challenges with moral positions, such as fairness, loyalty, and harm, that vary in resonance across the political spectrum. However, such studies focus primarily on issues such as climate change, where partisan opinions have already taken hold, not studies in which the objective is to prevent partisanship from forming. Further, few studies sufficiently model the competitive environment of policy introductions, with public officials and outside interests vying to define issues for the public, and with social cues, such as the political affiliations of spokespeople, indicating the positions that fellow partisans are expected to take. This project addresses these gaps, with an experimental assessment of the use of moral frames to prevent partisanship in competitive water policy introductions.The study will be conducted in two parts. First, Rasch modelling will be used to develop a water knowledge assessment. The assessment will be combined with a survey of water beliefs and administered to a sample of potential voters. The results will provide a detailed assessment of the public's comprehension of basic water science and regional water issues, indicate water subtopics from which polarization could develop, and identify the sources voters trust for water information. Based on these findings, the second part of the study will use an experimental design to simulate a competitive policy introduction. Two aspects of policy frames that convey value priorities will be assessed: moral foundations expressed through language and communicator identities that function as partisan decision heuristics. Additionally, characteristics of message recipients that moderate framing effects will be assessed including political self-identity and participant water knowledge as measured using the assessment developed in part one. From this research, a model will be created that describes how the influence of frame stimuli and the moderating characteristics of message recipients affect citizen-level sustainable policy decisions under competitive conditions. The research will clarify the conditions under which moral foundation frames restrain division on potentially divisive policy and provide more complete understanding of the degree to which non-competitive moral foundation framing studies set realistic expectations for frame effectiveness in applied policy scenarios. Findings of the research will be used to frame a series of publications about regional water challenges that increase water science literacy and promote informed citizen-level decision making. Research findings will also be published in a water communicator guide and shared with regional decision makers through Water Schools to help government officials and other community leaders guide productive water policy discourse.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.