Druckman (2004) Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation,

sarah's notes:

How contextual forces (elite competition and deliberation) and individual attributes affect success of framing. When do rationality assumptions apply?

(equivalency) Framing: “different but logically equivalent phrases cause individuals to alter their preferences.” Ie positive or negative framing of an issue. Not in reference to issue framing where issues are framed in the context of different values, these are not logically equivalent.
Rat choice: people have preferences that are used to base decisions on
-violated with equivalency framing effects, but not issue framing effects
framing manipulates the salience of diff. aspects of the information (gains versus losses) and triggers diff mental associations (good v. bad)
-with internal deliberation of possible alternate frames, the effect is washed out.
-competing frames reduce the effect of each singularly
H1: people exposed to counter-framing will be less susceptible to framing effects
H2: people who participate in a heterogeneous (w/people with different frames) discussion will be less susceptible to framing effects than those without conversation (no prediction about homogeneous conversation)
H3: “experts” less susceptible than “non-experts”
-expert defined as a combination of need for cognition and training
method
experiment: random assignment to 8 groups on two dimensions (see table 1 for more details)
1. positive or negative framing
2. context: control, counterframing, heterogeneous discussion, homogeneous discussion
Results
Frames (without taking account of conditions) had a significant effect on preference.
Context variables had a significant moderating effect of framing
Control had significant framing effects
Counterframe groups (given both positive and negative frames, altering which came first) had no effect of framing
Group conditions reduced, but did not eliminate framing effect. Heterogeneous discussion reduced effect more
Individual variables had no effect (expert or student/not student)
In homogeneous discussion groups, non-experts more affected by framing—effect of expertise depends on context

Confidence: those who express preference in the direction of the frame did so with greater confidence (evidence for incoherent preferences). Homogeneous discussion increases this confidence. – overconfidence bias of framing

Conclusion: more research needs to focus on context. Previous research that does not take context into account should be questioned for problems of external validity and generalizability.


My notes:
Framing effects: your preferences are changed by the “frame.” This is why we are concerned about the media’s role; how much power do they have?

After deliberation, people are less effected by the frames. W00t.

Hetero discussion—most change.

Homo discussion—still change from condition form when there was no discussion.

No discussion-least amount of change.

Counter-frame: CNN and Fox
What happens when you are exposed to both frames? i.e. CNN and Fox. Decrease framing effects. And you end up with “authentic” opinion, which is consistent with your values (liberalism/conservatism).

Neutrality = no counter-frame. What happens here?