Getting the Message? Choice, Self-Selection, and the Efficacy of Social Movement Arguments

The dynamics of choice and self-selection are central features of politics but absent from most experimental designs. We show how designs that incorporate choice, by allowing some subjects the option to receive or avoid treatment, can be extended by randomizing conditional on subjects’ treatment cho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of experimental political science Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. 296 - 309
Main Authors Testa, Paul F., Williams, Tarah, Britzman, Kylee, Hibbing, Matthew V.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.01.2021
Subjects
Cues
Design
Equality
Estimates
Experiments
Gender equity
Heterogeneity
Medical decision making
Partisanship
Political communication
Political science
Research Article
Sex crimes
Social activism
Social dynamics
Social movements
Social systems
Women
preference-incorporating choice and assignment design
effect heterogeneity
source cues
social movements
self-selection
political communication
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Summary:The dynamics of choice and self-selection are central features of politics but absent from most experimental designs. We show how designs that incorporate choice, by allowing some subjects the option to receive or avoid treatment, can be extended by randomizing conditional on subjects’ treatment choices to answer further questions of interest while preserving statistical power. We apply this design to study how the gender of messengers for the #MeToo social movement conditions who receives the movement’s message and how they respond. Our results, from both convenience and nationally representative samples, suggest that #MeToo movement’s message reaches a wide audience with the intended effect. The potential for backlash in response to the message appears limited but more likely when this message is delivered by a woman.
ISSN:2052-2630
2052-2649
DOI:10.1017/XPS.2020.24