ABSTRACT

Morally convicted attitudes—attitudes grounded in core beliefs about fundamental right and wrong—play an important role in political psychology, public opinion, and political behavior. Extant research suggests that these attitudes are intensely held, likely to evoke strong emotional responses, more stable and less amenable to compromise, and perceived to be universally true. Despite a large body of research on how morally convicted attitudes affect behavior and choice, several open questions remain about their antecedents. There are two questions central to this article: First, can the news media effectively communicate a sense of moral conviction to the mass public? Second, if so, what are the factors that cause these attitudes to become morally convicted? Drawing on framing theory, appraisal theory, and research in political communication, we hypothesize that moral conviction can be effectively communicated using episodic (as opposed to thematic) frames, and also, that emotional reactions to such frames contribute to the development of moral conviction. Using four survey experiments and two replications, we find some support for our hypotheses, but we also find that treatment effects are likely context dependent. We close with a discussion about avenues for future research.

摘要

道德定罪的态度——基于对基本是非的核心信念的态度——在政治心理学、公众舆论和政治行为中发挥着重要作用。现有研究表明，这些态度被强烈持有，可能会引起强烈的情绪反应，更稳定，更不容易妥协，并且被普遍认为是正确的。尽管对道德定罪的态度如何影响行为和选择进行了大量研究，但关于其前因的几个悬而未决的问题仍然存在。本文有两个核心问题：第一，新闻媒体能否有效地向大众传达道德信念？其次，如果是这样，导致这些态度在道德上被定罪的因素是什么？借鉴框架理论、评价理论和政治传播研究，我们假设道德信念可以使用情节（而不是主题）框架有效地传达，并且对这种框架的情感反应有助于道德信念的发展。使用四次调查实验和两次重复，我们发现对我们的假设有一些支持，但我们也发现治疗效果可能取决于上下文。我们最后讨论了未来研究的途径。