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Christopher Percy
Reflection Paper #1
Research has shown that the way in which we conceptualize our attitudes has
some determination over how durable they are over time (Bizer & Petty, 2005). Attitudes
that are meaningful, accessible, and formed through a process of consideration are more
durable than attitudes which are impulsive, unimportant, or inaccessible. Attitudinal
framing is one way in which these attitudes can be given greater resilience. In particular,
negative framing leads to greater resistance to new ideas and persuasion. Negative
information seems to be more powerful in the creation and amplification of attitudes than
positive information. This is often seen in political advertising, where the ad may focus
on the negative qualities of an opponent rather than the positive qualities of the
advertising party. Negative attitudes also seem to lead to greater action; individuals who
are dissatisfied with a candidate are more likely to vote and take action in favor of their
prefered candidate than are people who are happy with the status quo.
The authors of this study conducted two test to explore the impact of attitudinal
framing on political attitudes. In study one, participants were presented with two
fictitious candidates and allowed to form opinions and preferences about each. Then, they
were given a questionnaire which framed their views either as “supporting” one candidate
or “opposing” the other. The authors hypothesized that individuals who were framed as
oppositional, rather than supportive, would show more resistence to a counter-attitudinal
message. Sixty-nine undergraduates from Ohio State University took part in this study for
credit in an intro psychology course. Students were then exposed to the materials via a
computer program, asked to identify their support or opposition to each candidate, and
then filled out an 11-point likert-type measure to quantify their support or opposition
from “strongly oppose” to “strongly support”. Immediately following this, each
participant was exposed to an article describing scandals and illegal dealings allegedly
committed by the candidate which they supported. After this, participants were again
asked to identify their support and fill out the same measure a second time. The results
indicated that participants who’s support for one candidate was primarily in opposition to
the other exhibited more resistence to change (m=2.42) than did individuals who’s
support for a candidate was positive (m=3.69).
In the second study, the authors suggested that part of this effect might stem from
attitudinal priming; that is, that individuals who were labeled as “opposing” a candidate
were primed to “reject” by their exposure to typically negative ideas. Citing some
examples in the literature of negative priming being carried over to unrelated stimuli, the
authors conducted a second study to test this effect. Half of the participants underwent a
procedure similar to study 1, while the other half underwent a similar procedure but were
introduced to a persuasive message regarding a third, unrelated person as well, and asked
to report their attitude on this person. One hundred students from Eastern Illinois
University participated in this study in exchange for credit in an introductory psychology
class, and were asked to report their attitudes regarding two people as in study 1. Then
half of these students, rather than being asked to re-evaluate one of the initial two
candidates, were asked instead to evaluate a third person. However, the results indicated
that the interaction between priming or “valence framing” and the attitudes of the
participant were not significant (F = 1.37), indicating that the effect of priming was only
effective on relevant stimuli.
Bizer, G. & Petty, R (2005). How we conceptualize our attitudes matters: The effects of
valence framing on the resistence of political attitudes. Political Psychology,
26(4), 553-568.

Negativity results in more persistent and durable attitudes than positivity.

Framing someone in a way which presents their views as oppositional engenders a
stronger resistence to change.

This framing does not apply to stimuli unrelated to the initial attitudinal stimulus.