ABSTRACT

Among the many goals of advocacy organizations is motivating supporters to engage in actions that help move forward the policy goals of the group. This might include signing a petition, sending an email to an elected official, or attending a local government meeting. These actions are important for the maintenance of democracy, but also very rare; most people are not activists. How best to encourage supporters to engage in that necessary advocacy has thus been the topic of extensive political science research. We present results from a series of A/B experiments sent by a local environmental advocacy organization seeking to increase higher order levels of participation among their supporters. We find consistent evidence that framing those messages in negative terms (e.g., stop dirty energy) is more effective than framing them positively (e.g., promote clean energy).

摘要

倡导组织的众多目标之一是激励支持者参与有助于推进团体政策目标的行动。这可能包括签署请愿书，向选举的官员发送电子邮件，或参加当地政府会议。这些行动对维护民主很重要，但也非常少见；大多数人不是活动家。因此，如何最好地鼓励支持者参与必要的宣传一直是广泛的政治科学研究的主题。我们展示了由当地环境倡导组织发送的一系列 A/B 实验的结果，这些实验旨在提高其支持者的参与度。我们发现一致的证据表明，以负面的方式（例如，停止肮脏的能量）比以积极的方式（例如，