The Effects of Source Credibility and Message Framing on Sociopolitical Attitudes
A Research Study by Ryan Hall & Mackenzie O'Neill
Measures
This study will measure how participants self-identify their extremity of political ideology. The question will read, “On a scale of political ideology, individuals can be arranged from absolutely liberal to absolutely conservative. Which of the the following categories best describe your views” (Gastil, Black, & Moscovitz, 2008). Participants will be asked to place themselves on an eight point Likert scale ranging from “absolutely liberal” to “absolutely conservative.” Participants will be labeled as strong conservative ideologues when answer 1 or 2 are given and strong liberal ideologues when 7 or 8 are given. Participants will be labeled as moderate conservative ideologues will when 3 or 4 are given and moderate liberal ideologues when 4 or 5 are given.
A source credibility questionnaire will also be answered by participants. Participants will answer two questions on the trustworthiness and expertise of different news sources. Here is a sample question, “How would you rate the trustworthiness of the following news organizations”? Participants will answer the questions on a five-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all” to “completely.” The scores will be averaged out for conservatives and liberals separately, and the highest and lowest average credibility scores will be used as the treatment sources.
This study will be gathering pre-treatment and post-treatment data about the participant’s attitudes about climate change. Questions will be used from “Support for Governmental Action on Climate Mitigation (Hart and Nisbet, 2012). The questions are designed to measure the participant’s attitudes about environmental mitigation policy. A sample question from the questionnaire is: “concerns about global climate change is unwarranted and no action is need.” Answers will be given on an eight point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
In order to show validation of this study’s effect, two other topics were selected as treatment: immigration and a control message. Survey questions that measure participant's attitudes about immigration were chosen from previous literature relevant to the issue. Two studies were referenced, one for survey questions about immigration (Clark, Cramer, Crosby, Gonzalez, and Varela 2013), and another for a question about refugees (Marx and Murray 2012). The Clark study used a 5-point scale level of agreement, but we have expanded it to eight points. The Marx study used a nine point scale, which was reduced to eight. The only modification to these questions besides the scale points was to the refugee question. Originally it asked, “Do you think the United States should accept refugees into the country,” but in order to fit with statements of levels of agreement, it has been cut to “the United States should accept refugees into the country."
Most, if not all, of the questions asked are aimed to find the moral and socio-political attitudes of participants. As the treatment articles for immigration specifically reference refugees, the question about refugees is central to that subtopic within immigration. The questions do not reflect a pattern that can be anticipated by the participants, such as all progressive or liberal answers being "strongly agree." Just like the climate change questions, answers will be given on an eight point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
METHODS
Participants
The participants for this study will be undergraduates from Texas State University. About 720 participants will be needed to complete this study. If granted funding for this study, our team would be able to take advantage of more powerful databases and access the sample size necessary to properly test our hypotheses. Without funding, it is unlikely we will be able to gather enough students from Texas State in order to run our test at the appropriate power. However, with a goal of $300, the sample can be easily accessed with databases such as Mechanical Turk.
To request more information, contact the researchers with this form: