Moral reframing involves crafting persuasive arguments that appeal to the targets’ moral values but argue in favor of something they would typically oppose. Applying this technique to one of the most politically polarizing events—political campaigns—we hypothesized that messages criticizing one’s preferred political candidate that also appeal to that person’s moral values can decrease support for the candidate. We tested this claim in the context of the 2016 American presidential election. In Study 1, conservatives reading a message opposing Donald Trump grounded in a more conservative value (loyalty) supported him less than conservatives reading a message grounded in more liberal concerns (fairness). In Study 2, liberals reading a message opposing Hillary Clinton appealing to fairness values were less supportive of Clinton than liberals in a loyalty-argument condition. These results highlight how moral reframing can be used to overcome the rigid stances partisans often hold and help develop political acceptance.

Study 1 In the first study, we presented participants with arguments opposing Donald Trump that were framed in terms of either fairness or loyalty moral concerns. We hypothesized that conservatives in the loyalty argument condition would support Trump less than conservatives in the fairness argument condition, but the moderate and liberal participants would likely be unaffected by our manipulation. We measured support for Donald Trump, our dependent variable, with both attitudes (warmth and acceptance as president) and behavioral intentions (likelihood to vote for Trump) and tested whether the effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for him might be mediated by the attitudes measures.

Method Participants Based on the past research on moral reframing (e.g., Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015), we expected a small effect size (specifically, a R2Δ of approximately .02 to .03 as a result of including the interaction of political ideology and experimental condition into the regression equation). In order to have enough statistical power, therefore, we estimated a sample size of around 400 participants in each study would be required. In Study 1, 404 participants recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk website completed the study. Participants were excluded if they had missing values (n = 3) or if they failed an attention check (n = 4). Thus, the final sample size consisted of 397 participants (189 male, 207 female, 1 other; M age = 37.33, SD = 12.94). Participants took part in this study on August 28, 2016, 72 days prior to the 2016 presidential election and were given a small payment for their participation. Procedure Participants learned they would be presented with some information about a candidate for the 2016 presidential election and be asked questions afterward. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the loyalty or fairness argument condition. Both conditions involved presenting participants with a short message arguing against Donald Trump, modeled after actual campaign advertisements. The loyalty message was written so that it would appeal to the loyalty/betrayal moral foundation, incorporating words and phrases representative of that foundation (cf. Graham et al., 2009). For instance, the loyalty message argued that Trump “has repeatedly behaved disloyally towards our country to serve his own interests” and that “during the Vietnam War, he dodged the draft to follow his father into the development business” (for full text, see Supplemental Material). The fairness argument, in contrast, appealed to the fairness/cheating moral foundation and used words and phrases representative of that foundation. For instance, it argued that Trump “openly discriminates against Muslims threatening their rights to be treated with fairness and equality” and that “his unfair statements are a breeding ground for prejudice” (for full text, see Supplemental Material). Each message was accompanied by a picture of Donald Trump further highlighting the corresponding moral value, showing him either next to American soldiers in action (loyalty argument condition) or next to Muslims demonstrating against terrorism (fairness argument condition). Following the campaign message, participants were asked to summarize the message they just read, which served as an attention check. Two raters coded whether participants’ answers to the attention check indicated that the participants actually read the arguments. The interrater reliability was high (ϕ = .70). We excluded only those participants for which both coders rated the summary as inadequate. Afterward, participants completed 3 measures relating to Donald Trump. Warmth was measured with the item: “How warm or cold do you feel toward Donald Trump?” answered on a scale from 0 (very cold) to 100 (very warm). Acceptance as President was measured with the item: “How easy or hard would it be for you to accept Donald Trump as the President of the United States?”, answered on a scale from 0 (very easy) to 100 (very hard). Finally, Likelihood to Vote was measured with the item: “In the upcoming 2016 presidential election, how likely are you to vote for Donald Trump for president?,” answered on a scale from 0 (very unlikely) to 100 (very likely). The initial position of the slider for all 3 items was at the midpoint of the scales. Finally, participants completed a demographic questionnaire which included a measure of political ideology (“Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as conservative, moderate, or liberal?”) with three response categories (conservative, moderate, and liberal). Analysis Strategy We conducted separate multiple regression analyses for the three dependent variables. A dummy variable for moral argument condition (fairness argument as reference group), two dummy variables for political ideology (conservatives as reference group), and the interaction terms of condition and ideology were included as independent variables. Although we expected different effects of the moral argument condition for the different ideology groups (implying an interaction effect), our main focus was a priori on the simple slopes analyses. To ensure the robustness of our results, we included several robustness checks that consistently supported our results (for details, see Supplemental Material). In addition, we conducted a moderated mediation analysis using Model 8 of Hayes’ Process macro (Hayes, 2013). We included experimental condition as the independent variable, ideology as the moderator, warmth and acceptance as president as mediators, and likelihood to vote for Trump as the dependent variable. A bias-corrected bootstrap estimation approach with 5,000 samples was used to estimate the indirect effects.

Results Means and standard deviations of the dependent variables for each condition by ideology group are presented in Table 1. Table 1. Results of Study 1: Means (SDs, n) for Argument Condition × Participants' Ideology. View larger version Warmth The regression analysis showed a significant interaction effect, ΔR2 = 0.01, F(2, 391) = 3.14, p = .044. Simple-slopes analyses indicated that, as expected, conservative participants perceived Trump as less warm in the loyalty argument condition than in the fairness argument condition, b = −13.82, t(391) = −2.53, p = .012, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [−24.58, −3.06]. There was no significant effect of the moral argument condition for either moderates, b = −1.43, t(391) = −0.34, p = .736, 95% CI [−9.75, 6.90], or liberals, b = 2.90, t(391) = 0.75, p = .453, 95% CI [−4.69, 10.50]. Acceptance as President The regression analyses showed a significant interaction effect, ΔR2 = .01, F(2, 391) = 3.48, p = .032. Simple-slopes analyses indicated that, as expected, conservative participants accepted Trump less as president in the loyalty argument condition than in the fairness argument condition, b = −15.39, t(391) = −2.20, p = .028, 95% CI [−29.14, −1.65]. There was no significant effect of the moral argument condition for either moderates, b = 1.13, t(391) = 0.21, p = .835, 95% CI [−9.51, 11.76], or liberals, b = 7.09, t(391) = 1.44, p = .152, 95% CI [−2.62, 16.80]. Likelihood to Vote for Trump The interaction effect was significant, ΔR2 = .02, F(2, 391) = 4.84, p = .008. Simple-slopes analyses indicated that, as expected, conservative participants were less likely to vote for Trump in the loyalty argument condition than in the fairness argument condition, b = −18.87, t(391) = −2.91, p = .004, 95% CI [−31.61, −6.14]. There was no significant effect of the moral argument condition for either moderates, b = −0.45, t(391) = −0.09, p = .929, 95% CI [−10.30, 9.40], or liberals, b = 5.65, t(391) = 1.24, p = .217, 95% CI [−3.34, 14.65]. These findings are illustrated in Figure 1. Download Open in new tab Download in PowerPoint Moderated Mediation Analyses The results of the moderated mediation analysis were consistent with our hypotheses. For conservatives, the effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Trump was mediated by warmth, b = −12.15, SE = 6.26, 95% CI [−25.07, −0.56], and by acceptance as president, b = −1.73, SE = 1.07, 95% CI [−4.69, −0.22], and the direct effect of experimental condition on likelihood to vote for Trump was not significant for conservatives, b = −4.99, t(389) = −1.36, p = .173, 95% CI [−12.19, 2.21]. For moderates, there was no indirect effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Trump, for warmth: b = −1.25, SE = 4.54, 95% CI [−10.19, 7.75], or for acceptance as president: b = 0.13, SE = 0.70, 95% CI [−1.27, 1.61]. The direct effect of experimental condition on likelihood to vote for Trump was also not significant for moderates, b = 0.68, t(389) = 0.24, p = .810, 95% CI [−4.85, 6.20]. Likewise, for liberals, there was no indirect effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Trump, for warmth: b = 2.55, SE = 1.88, 95% CI [−1.15, 6.32], or for acceptance as president: b = 0.80, SE = 0.56, 95% CI [−0.04, 2.27], and the direct effect of experimental condition on likelihood to vote for Trump was not significant for liberals, b = 2.30, t(389) = 0.90, p = .371, 95% CI [−2.75, 7.36].

Discussion We found causal evidence that, compared to arguments in opposition to Donald Trump grounded in fairness concerns, arguments opposing Trump that appealed to the more conservative value of loyalty were more effective in causing conservative participants to feel colder toward Trump, to accept him less as president, and, most importantly, to be less likely to vote for him. Further, the results suggest that the effect of moral argument condition on the likelihood to vote for Trump was mediated by perceived warmth and acceptance as president for conservatives. We did not find convincing evidence that the moral argument condition affected the support of moderates or liberals for Donald Trump.

Study 2 In Study 2, we aimed to conceptually replicate Study 1 with Hillary Clinton as the target instead of Donald Trump. That is, we presented participants with arguments opposing Hillary Clinton’s candidacy that were framed in terms of either fairness or loyalty moral concerns. We hypothesized that liberals in the fairness argument condition would support Clinton less than liberals in the loyalty argument condition, while the manipulation would not affect the moderates or conservatives. We measured support for Hillary Clinton with the same measures as in Study 1 and tested whether the effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for her would be mediated by the attitudes measures.

Method Participants Four hundred and eight participants recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk website completed the study. Participants were excluded if they had missing values (n = 3) or if they failed the attention check (n = 13). Thus, the final sample size consisted of 392 participants (172 males, 218 females, 1 agender, 1 genderqueer; M age = 36.86, SD = 12.24). Participants took part in this study on September 2, 2016, 67 days prior to the 2016 presidential election and were given a small payment for their participation. Procedure The procedure paralleled that of Study 1, except the target of the message this time was Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. Accordingly, we formulated messages in opposition to Clinton grounded in either loyalty or fairness values. For instance, the loyalty message argued that Clinton “is willing to risk the standing of our nation to achieve her own goals” and that “she failed our ambassador and soldiers in Benghazi” (for full text, see Supplemental Material). The fairness argument, in contrast, argued that “while so many Americans have suffered during the recent recession that the Wall Street Banks helped cause, Clinton has accepted millions of dollars from them in exchange for giving a few speeches” and that “Clinton is willing to sacrifice fairness and equality to achieve her own goals” (for full text, see Supplemental Material). The loyalty argument was accompanied by a picture showing Hillary Clinton next to an open envelope with an email symbol inside. The fairness argument was accompanied by a picture showing Hillary Clinton next to a Wall Street sign. Following the campaign message, participants were asked to summarize the message they just read. As in Study 1, two raters coded whether participants’ answers to the attention check indicated that the participants actually read the arguments. The interrater reliability was high (ϕ = .89). We excluded only those participants for which both coders rated the summary as inadequate. Afterward, they completed the same three measures that were used in Study 1 regarding Hillary Clinton (warmth, acceptance as president, likelihood to vote). At the end of the study, participants completed a demographic questionnaire which included the same measure of political ideology as used in Study 1. Analysis Strategy We used the same analysis strategy as in Study 1 except that this time the loyalty condition was used as reference category for the moral argument manipulation. Again, we used several robustness checks that consistently supported our results (for details, see Supplemental Material).

Results Means and SDs of the dependent variables for each condition by ideology group are presented in Table 2. Table 2. Results of Study 2: Means (SDs, n) for Argument Condition × Participants' Ideology. View larger version Warmth The regression analysis showed a marginally significant interaction effect, ΔR2 = .01, F(2, 386) = 2.43, p = .090. Simple-slopes analyses indicated that, as expected, liberal participants perceived Clinton as less warm in the fairness argument condition than in the loyalty argument condition, b = −12.55, t(386) = −3.06, p = .002, 95% CI [−20.61, −4.49]. There was no significant effect of the moral argument condition for either moderates, b = −2.00, t(386) = −0.45, p = .653, 95% CI [−10.76, 6.75], or conservatives, b = 1.52, t(386) = 0.25, p = .805, 95% CI [−10.57, 13.61]. Acceptance as President The interaction effect was not significant, ΔR2 = 0.01, F(2, 386) = 1.83, p = .162. In addition, simple effects analysis did not provide support for our hypothesis: Liberals in the fairness argument condition did not accept Clinton significantly less as president than liberals in the loyalty argument condition, b = −0.12, t(386) = −0.02, p = .981, 95% CI [−9.74, 9.51]. Additionally, there was no significant effect of the moral argument condition for moderates, b = −0.33, t(386) = −0.06, p = .950, 95% CI [−10.79, 10.12], but there was some evidence that conservatives in the fairness argument condition accepted Clinton more as president than conservatives in the loyalty argument condition, b = 15.42, t(386) = 2.10, p = .036, 95% CI [0.98, 29.87]. Likelihood to Vote for Clinton The interaction effect was not significant, ΔR2 = 0.00, F(2, 386) = 1.27, p = .282. However, simple-slopes analyses indicated that, as expected, liberal participants were less likely to vote for Clinton in the fairness argument condition than in the loyalty argument condition, b = −12.72, t(386) = −2.36, p = .019, 95% CI [−23.32, −2.11]. There was no significant effect of condition for either moderates, b = −2.32, t(386) = −0.40, p = .692, 95% CI [−13.83, 9.20], or conservatives, b = 0.29, t(386) = 0.04, p = .971, 95% CI [−15.62, 16.20]. These findings are illustrated in Figure 2. Download Open in new tab Download in PowerPoint Moderated Mediation Analyses Although the interaction effects above were either marginal or not significant, we still chose to conduct moderated mediation analyses in line with Rucker, Preacher, Tormala, and Petty’s (2011) argument that a significant total effect is not a requirement for a significant indirect effect to occur. However, it should be emphasized that such mediation analyses of nonsignificant effects should be interpreted cautiously. For liberals, the effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Clinton was mediated by warmth, b = −10.80, standard error (SE) = 3.76, 95% CI [−18.36, −3.84], but not by acceptance as president, b = −0.02, SE = 1.00, 95% CI [−2.18, 1.84], and the direct effect of experimental condition on likelihood to vote for Clinton was not significant for liberals, b = −1.89, t(384) = −0.53, p = .596, 95% CI [−8.90, 5.12]. For moderates, there was no indirect effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Clinton, for warmth: b = −1.73, SE = 4.03, 95% CI [−9.74, 6.20], or for acceptance as president: b = −0.06, SE = 1.09, 95% CI [−2.14, 2.31], and the direct effect of experimental condition on likelihood to vote for Clinton was not significant for moderates, b = −0.53, t(384) = −0.14, p = .890, 95% CI [−8.02, 6.96]. For conservatives, there was an unexpected indirect effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Clinton via acceptance as president, b = 2.99, SE = 1.51, 95% CI [0.72, 6.85], but not for warmth: b = 1.31, SE = 4.37, 95% CI [−7.21, 10.05]. The direct effect of experimental condition on likelihood to vote for Clinton was not significant for conservatives, b = −4.01, t(384) = −0.76, p = .450, 95% CI [−14.43, 6.41].

Discussion The results of Study 2, though in line with our hypotheses, were more complex than the results of Study 1. Although the results of the simple effects analyses were generally consistent with the predictions of a moral reframing account, the predicted interaction effects were nonsignificant for two of our dependent variables and marginally significant for the third dependent variable. Interestingly, we found some evidence for a moral reframing effect for conservatives, which, though not directly hypothesized, is in the direction predicted by a moral reframing account such that conservatives were more persuaded by appeals grounded in the more conservative moral foundation of loyalty.

Acknowledgments We thank How Hwee Ong, Robb Willer, and Shuai Yuan for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Further, we thank all research assistants involved for their support.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Supplemental Material

The supplemental material is available in the online version of the article.