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引起分歧的话题；然而，随着地区水资源的极限临近，水资源需求必须得到优先考虑，水资源政策很有可能变得充满政治色彩，自由派和保守派保持不同的立场。水政策传播者将两极分化最小化的能力将影响利益相关者愿意为解决水问题而共同努力的程度。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，减少两极分化，这些立场在不同的政治光谱中存在不同的共鸣。然而，这类研究主要集中在气候变化等党派观点已经站稳脚跟的问题上，而不是目标是防止党派偏见形成的研究。此外，很少有研究对政策出台的竞争环境进行充分建模，公职人员和外部利益集团争先恐后地为公众定义问题，并利用社会线索，如发言人的政治背景，表明其他党派预计将采取的立场。该项目旨在解决这些差距，并对在竞争性水政策引入中使用道德框架来防止党派之争进行了实验性评估。首先，将使用Rasch模型来开发水知识评估。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。结果将提供公众对基础水科学和区域水问题的理解的详细评估，指出可能导致两极分化的水分主题，并确定选民信任的水信息来源。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。将评估传达价值优先事项的政策框架的两个方面：通过语言表达的道德基础和充当党派决策试探法的传播者身份。此外，将评估中等框架效应的消息收件人的特征，包括政治认同和参与者的水知识，使用第一部分中制定的评估来衡量。通过这项研究，将建立一个模型，描述框架刺激的影响和信息接收者的调节特征如何影响竞争条件下公民层面的可持续决策。这项研究将阐明道德基础框架抑制潜在分裂政策分歧的条件，并提供更全面的理解，以了解非竞争性道德基础框架研究在多大程度上设定了应用政策情景中框架有效性的现实期望。这项研究的结果将被用来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公民一级的知情决策。研究成果还将发表在水传播者指南中，并通过水学校与地区决策者分享，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论述。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.