crazytoms2000
crazytoms2000 OP t1_iymj5tm wrote
Reply to comment by -domi- in The Impact of Political Memes: a Longitudinal Field Experiment. The study finds that political memes have limited persuasion and polarization effects. They mostly contribute to attitude entrenchment among strong party identifiers. by crazytoms2000
Hi, I am the author of the article.
In this experiment, memes had no direct persuasion (e.g. people who were assigned to the left-wing memes condition didn't become more left-wing, and people assigned to the right-wing meme condition did not become more right-wing compared to the control group) nor did it have a direct polarization effect. However, I observe a polarization effect among individuals who feel close or fairly close to a political party and who were assigned to a treatment group that was incongruent with their prior beliefs (e.g. someone who is left-wing assigned to the right-wing treatment group). This suggest motivated reasoning in order to protect important prior beliefs.
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Happy to answer any other questions :)
crazytoms2000 OP t1_iyny33i wrote
Reply to comment by -domi- in The Impact of Political Memes: a Longitudinal Field Experiment. The study finds that political memes have limited persuasion and polarization effects. They mostly contribute to attitude entrenchment among strong party identifiers. by crazytoms2000
Only if they feel close or fairly close to a political party. These individuals could be motivated more than others to protect their political beliefs when they see incongruent information.