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Article
Morally Reframed Arguments Can Affect
Support for Political Candidates
Jan G. Voelkel
1
and Matthew Feinberg
2
Abstract
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 hypo-
thesized 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.
Keywords
moral psychology, political psychology, influence, attitudes
Political elections provide the general populace with a choice
between two (or more) candidates who have contrasting view-
points on how best to serve the people and their needs. These
viewpoints, and the candidates who endorse them, often fall
into opposing sides of the political spectrum, with one candi-
date representing a more liberal perspective and the other rep-
resenting a more conservative perspective. Generally, people’s
support for one candidate or the other reflects whether they
identify with the liberal or conservative perspective that each
candidate embodies (e.g., gallup.com, n.d.).
Despite these ideological allegiances, candidates, their
campaigns, and everyday supporters invest substantial time
and resources in hopes of persuading those who endorse the other
candidate that he or she is the wrong person for the job. Even
though this process is commonplace and exorbitant amounts
of money are devoted to it (Cummings, 2008), it is largely
unknown whether such attempts at persuasion are ever effective
and, if they are, what types of arguments have the greatest impact.
In the present research, we explore the possibility that cer-
tain types of moral arguments can be an effective strategy for
persuading liberals and conservatives to be less attached to the
candidate who represents their party and perspective. Specifi-
cally, we examine the effectiveness of a technique called
“moral reframing” (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015) in the con-
text of the United States 2016 presidential election.
Morality and Political Attitudes
Morality matters for political attitudes (Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh,
& Baldacci, 2008; Morgan, Skitka, & Wisneski, 2010).
Liberals and conservatives possess different moral worldviews,
and such differences help explain many of the contrasting
stances the two sides take (Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vec-
chione, & Barbaranelli, 2006; Graham, Haidt, & Nosek,
2009; Thorisdottir, Jost, Liviatan, & Shrout, 2007). Recently,
researchers mapped the moral domain and found evidence for
five moral foundations that form the basis of moral beliefs and
judgments (Graham et al., 2011; Haidt & Josephs, 2004). The
harm/care foundation is concerned with other’s suffering and
the need to prevent and alleviate such suffering. The fairness/
cheating foundation relates to justice, equality, and discrimina-
tion. The loyalty/betrayal foundation emphasizes the impor-
tance of one’s in-group and prioritizing that in-group. The
authority/subversion foundation deals with respect for higher
ranked individuals as well as adherence to tradition. Finally,
the sanctity/degradation foundation is concerned with sacred-
ness and purity and avoiding disgust-evoking behaviors (Haidt,
2007, 2012; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). Research has, in turn,
found that compared to conservatives, liberals more strongly
endorse the harm/care and the fairness/cheating foundations,
1
Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the
Netherlands
2
Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada
Corresponding Author:
Jan G. Voelkel, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE
Tilburg, the Netherlands.
Emails: j.g.volkel@tilburguniversity.edu; jangvoelkel.research@gmail.com
Social Psychological and
Personality Science
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ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1948550617729408
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while conservatives more strongly endorse the loyalty/betrayal,
authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation foundations
(Graham et al., 2009; Haidt & Graham, 2007).
Moral Reframing and Candidate Arguments
Building on this understanding of the moral divide between lib-
erals and conservatives, recent research has shown that it is
possible to capitalize on these distinctions for purposes of polit-
ical persuasion and coalition formation by using “moral
reframing” (Day, Fiske, Downing, & Trail, 2014; Feinberg &
Willer, 2013, 2015; Kidwell, Farmer, & Hardesty, 2013;
Wolsko, Ariceaga, & Seiden, 2016). Moral reframing involves
framing arguments that favor one’s own political stance but
grounding these arguments in moral terms that appeal to the
moral values of those on the other side of the political spec-
trum. In this research, while liberals were unmoved by argu-
ments in favor of conservative policies grounded in the more
conservative moral foundations, their support for the conserva-
tive positions increased after reading messages grounded in the
more liberal foundations, and this research also demonstrated
the reverse when it comes to liberals persuading conservative
targets (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015; Kidwell et al., 2013;
Wolsko et al., 2016; cf. Day et al., 2014).
Although this past research has shown that moral reframing
can be an effective strategy for persuading those on the other
side of the political spectrum to be more supportive of policies
they would typically oppose, no research has explored the
effectiveness of moral reframing in one of the most conten-
tious, but fundamental, political domains—political cam-
paigns. Might moral reframing be an effective means for
affecting support for political candidates? We expected that it
would, because moral evaluations are particularly relevant for
person perception and impression formation overall (Goodwin,
Piazza, & Rozin, 2014), and are especially relevant when mak-
ing judgments about powerful figures and political candidates
(Chen, Jing, & Lee, 2012; Skitka & Bauman, 2008; Trevino,
Hartman, & Brown, 2000).
Additionally, moral reframing research has primarily focused
on the effectiveness of morally reframed messages in support of
a stance and has largely not explored whether this technique
would work when arguments are made in opposition to a stance.
Even so, understanding moral reframing’s effectiveness in
decreasing a target’s support is particularly important, consider-
ing how much political rhetoric aims to decrease support for a
policy or a political candidate. We predicted that the same under-
lying processes will apply regardless of whether a morally
reframed message is in favor or in opposition to a stance; as long
as, the argument itself is framed in a manner that appeals directly
to the moral values of the targets, then those targets should be
responsive to it because it fits with their morality.
The Present Research
We tested our predictions by examining the effectiveness of
morally reframed messages in the context of the U.S.
presidential election campaign of 2016, presenting participants
with short campaign messages in opposition to either Donald
Trump (Study 1) or Hillary Clinton (Study 2). In each study,
these messages were framed in terms of either a moral value
endorsed at higher levels by conservatives (i.e., loyalty) or a
moral value endorsed at higher levels by liberals (i.e., fairness).
We expected that conservatives would become less supportive
of Donald Trump after reading an oppositional message
grounded in loyalty values than after reading a message
grounded in fairness values. On the other hand, we expected
liberals would become less supportive of Hillary Clinton after
reading an oppositional message grounded in fairness values
than after reading a message grounded in loyalty values.
We did not make any specific predictions regarding how
liberals would respond to the anti-Trump messages and how
conservatives would respond to the different messages in
opposition to Clinton. Although the anti-Trump messages
framed in more liberal moral terms might resonate with liberals
and the anti-Clinton messages framed in more conservative
moral terms might resonate with conservatives, these argu-
ments may still be ineffective because they were aiming to per-
suade targets to take on a position that, likely, they already held
(cf. Day et al., 2014).
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 con-
servatives in the loyalty argument condition would support
Trump less than conservatives in the fairness argument condi-
tion, 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 (specif-
ically, a R
2
Dof 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 web-
site completed the study. Participants were excluded if they had
missing values (n¼3) or if they failed an attention check (n¼
4). Thus, the final sample size consisted of 397 participants
(189 male, 207 female, 1 other; M
age
¼37.33, SD ¼12.94).
Participants took part in this study on August 28, 2016, 72 days
2Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
prior to the 2016 presidential election and were given a small
payment for their participation.
Procedure
Participants learned they would be presented with some infor-
mation 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 pre-
senting participants with a short message arguing against
Donald Trump, modeled after actual campaign advertise-
ments. 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 Mate-
rial). The fairness argument, in contrast, appealed to the fair-
ness/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 highlight-
ing 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
(j¼.70). We excluded only those participants for which both
coders rated the summary as inadequate. Afterward, partici-
pants 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)to100(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, moder-
ate, and liberal).
Analysis Strategy
We conducted separate multiple regression analyses for the
three dependent variables. A dummy variable for moral argu-
ment condition (fairness argument as reference group), two
dummy variables for political ideology (conservatives as refer-
ence group), and the interaction terms of condition and ideol-
ogy were included as independent variables.
Although we expected different effects of the moral argu-
ment 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 experimen-
tal condition as the independent variable, ideology as the mod-
erator, 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 sam-
ples 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.
Warmth
The regression analysis showed a significant interaction
effect, DR
2
¼0.01, F(2, 391) ¼3.14, p¼.044. Simple-
slopes analyses indicated that, as expected, conservative
participants perceived Trump as less warm in the loyalty argu-
ment condition than in the fairness argument condition, b¼
13.82, t(391) ¼2.53, p¼.012, 95%confidence interval
(CI) ¼[24.58, 3.06]. There was no significant effect of the
moral argument condition for either moderates, b¼1.43,
t(391) ¼0.34, p¼.736, 95%CI [9.75, 6.90], or liberals,
b¼2.90, t(391) ¼0.75, p¼.453, 95%CI [4.69, 10.50].
Acceptance as President
The regression analyses showed a significant interaction effect,
DR
2
¼.01, F(2, 391) ¼3.48, p¼.032. 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, b¼15.39, t(391) ¼
2.20, p¼.028, 95%CI [29.14, 1.65]. There was no sig-
nificant effect of the moral argument condition for either mod-
erates, b¼1.13, t(391) ¼0.21, p¼.835, 95%CI [9.51,
11.76], or liberals, b¼7.09, t(391) ¼1.44, p¼.152, 95%
CI [2.62, 16.80].
Likelihood to Vote for Trump
The interaction effect was significant, DR
2
¼.02, F(2, 391) ¼
4.84, p¼.008. Simple-slopes analyses indicated that, as
Voelkel and Feinberg 3
expected, conservative participants were less likely to vote for
Trump in the loyalty argument condition than in the fairness
argument condition, b¼18.87, t(391) ¼2.91, p¼.004,
95%CI [31.61, 6.14]. There was no significant effect of the
moral argument condition for either moderates, b¼0.45,
t(391) ¼0.09, p¼.929, 95%CI [10.30, 9.40], or liberals,
b¼5.65, t(391) ¼1.24, p¼.217, 95%CI [3.34, 14.65].
These findings are illustrated in Figure 1.
Moderated Mediation Analyses
The results of the moderated mediation analysis were consis-
tent with our hypotheses. For conservatives, the effect of
experimental condition on the likelihood to vote for Trump was
mediated by warmth, b¼12.15, SE ¼6.26, 95%CI [25.07,
0.56], and by acceptance as president, b¼1.73, SE ¼1.07,
95%CI [4.69, 0.22], and the direct effect of experimental
condition on likelihood to vote for Trump was not significant
for conservatives, b¼4.99, t(389) ¼1.36, p¼.173,
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: b¼1.25, SE ¼4.54, 95%CI [10.19,
7.75], or for acceptance as president: b¼0.13, SE ¼0.70,
95%CI [1.27, 1.61]. The direct effect of experimental condi-
tion on likelihood to vote for Trump was also not significant for
moderates, b¼0.68, t(389) ¼0.24, p¼.810, 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: b¼2.55, SE ¼1.88, 95%CI [1.15, 6.32], or for
acceptance as president: b¼0.80, SE ¼0.56, 95%CI
[0.04, 2.27], and the direct effect of experimental condition
on likelihood to vote for Trump was not significant for liberals,
b¼2.30, t(389) ¼0.90, p¼.371, 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 conser-
vative 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 evi-
dence 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 manipula-
tion would not affect the moderates or conservatives. We mea-
sured 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.
Table 1. Results of Study 1: Means (SDs, n) for Argument Condition Participants’ Ideology.
Condition
Ideology
Conservative Moderate Liberal
(a) Warmth
Fairness argument 61.04 (31.56, 45) 31.87 (30.50, 67) 5.10 (12.63, 83)
Loyalty argument 47.23 (32.65, 40) 30.44 (30.54, 75) 8.00 (14.86, 87)
(b) Acceptance as president
Fairness argument 65.84 (32.94, 45) 34.55 (34.00, 67) 11.51 (25.53, 83)
Loyalty argument 50.45 (36.74, 40) 35.68 (34.77, 75) 18.60 (31.49, 87)
(c) Likelihood to vote
Fairness argument 74.62 (31.72, 45) 31.58 (37.56, 67) 2.06 (8.88, 83)
Loyalty argument 55.75 (39.82, 40) 31.13 (38.31, 75) 7.71 (19.64, 87)
Note. The acceptance as president measure was recoded so that higher values indicate that participants were more willing to accept Trump as president.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
larebiLetaredoMevitavresnoC
Likelihood to Vote for Trump
Fairness Argument Loyalty Argument
**
{
Figure 1. Likelihood to vote for Trump depending on argument
condition and participants’ ideology. *p< .05, **p< .01.
4Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
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 (n¼3) or if they
failed the attention check (n¼13). Thus, the final sample size
consisted of 392 participants (172 males, 218 females, 1 agen-
der, 1 genderqueer; M
age
¼36.86, SD ¼12.24). 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 will-
ing 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 Clin-
ton 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 (j¼.89). 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.
Warmth
The regression analysis showed a marginally significant inter-
action effect, DR
2
¼.01, F(2, 386) ¼2.43, p¼.090. 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, b¼
12.55, t(386) ¼3.06, p¼.002, 95%CI [20.61, 4.49].
Therewasnosignificanteffectofthemoralargumentcondi-
tion for either moderates, b¼2.00, t(386) ¼0.45, p¼
.653, 95%CI [10.76, 6.75], or conservatives, b¼1.52,
t(386) ¼0.25, p¼.805, 95%CI [10.57, 13.61].
Acceptance as President
The interaction effect was not significant, DR
2
¼0.01, F(2,
386) ¼1.83, p¼.162. 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, b¼
0.12, t(386) ¼0.02, p¼.981, 95%CI [9.74, 9.51]. Addi-
tionally, there was no significant effect of the moral argument
Table 2. Results of Study 2: Means (SDs, n) for Argument Condition Participants’ Ideology.
Condition
Ideology
Conservative Moderate Liberal
(a) Warmth
Fairness argument 10.59 (23.21, 37) 27.45 (28.10, 74) 42.04 (27.17, 84)
Loyalty argument 9.08 (20.61, 39) 29.45 (29.03, 71) 54.59 (27.24, 87)
(b) Acceptance as president
Fairness argument 25.73 (37.81, 37) 34.92 (32.26, 74) 60.95 (30.80, 84)
Loyalty argument 10.31 (19.42, 39) 35.25 (33.16, 71) 61.07 (33.77, 87)
(c) Likelihood to vote
Fairness Argument 10.70 (26.50, 37) 33.88 (38.81, 74) 63.26 (38.32, 84)
Loyalty argument 10.41 (24.87, 39) 36.20 (40.71, 71) 75.98 (31.11, 87)
Note. The acceptance as president measure was recoded so that higher values indicate that participants were more willing to accept Clinton as president.
Voelkel and Feinberg 5
condition for moderates, b¼0.33, t(386) ¼0.06, p¼.950,
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, b¼15.42, t(386) ¼2.10, p¼.036,
95%CI [0.98, 29.87].
Likelihood to Vote for Clinton
The interaction effect was not significant, DR
2
¼0.00,
F(2, 386) ¼1.27, p¼.282. 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, b¼12.72, t(386)
¼2.36, p¼.019, 95%CI [23.32, 2.11]. There was no
significant effect of condition for either moderates, b¼
2.32, t(386) ¼0.40, p¼.692, 95%CI [13.83, 9.20],
or conservatives, b¼0.29, t(386) ¼0.04, p¼.971, 95%CI
[15.62, 16.20]. These findings are illustrated in Figure 2.
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 require-
ment for a significant indirect effect to occur. However, it
should be emphasized that such mediation analyses of non-
significant effects should be interpreted cautiously. For liber-
als, the effect of experimental condition on the likelihood to
vote for Clinton was mediated by warmth, b¼10.80, stan-
dard error (SE)¼3.76, 95%CI [18.36, 3.84], but not by
acceptance as president, b¼0.02, SE ¼1.00, 95%CI
[2.18, 1.84], and the direct effect of experimental condition
on likelihood to vote for Clinton was not significant for liber-
als, b¼1.89, t(384) ¼0.53, p¼.596, 95%CI [8.90,
5.12]. For moderates, there was no indirect effect of experi-
mental condition on the likelihood to vote for Clinton, for
warmth: b¼1.73, SE ¼4.03, 95%CI [9.74, 6.20], or for
acceptance as president: b¼0.06, SE ¼1.09, 95%CI
[2.14, 2.31], and the direct effect of experimental condition
on likelihood to vote for Clinton was not significant for moder-
ates, b¼0.53, t(384) ¼0.14, p¼.890, 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, b¼2.99, SE ¼1.51,
95%CI [0.72, 6.85], but not for warmth: b¼1.31, SE ¼
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, b¼4.01, t(384) ¼0.76, p¼.450, 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 depen-
dent variables and marginally significant for the third depen-
dent 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 per-
suaded by appeals grounded in the more conservative moral
foundation of loyalty.
General Discussion
Across two studies using the two major candidates from the
2016 U.S. presidential election as targets, we found evidence
that moral reframing can be an effective strategy for persuading
the electorate about political candidates (for a discussion of the
differences between Study 1 and Study 2 see below). As such,
the present inquiry extends past research on moral reframing in
important ways. Although it has been shown that moral refram-
ing can increase the support of liberals and conservatives for
policies that they would usually oppose (e.g., Feinberg &
Willer, 2013, 2015), the present research provides the first evi-
dence that moral reframing is also an effective strategy to
decrease the attachment of liberals and conservatives to the
political candidate of the party they typically support.
Furthermore, the current findings illustrate that despite the
fundamental moral differences separating liberals and conser-
vatives (e.g., Graham et al., 2009; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, &
Sulloway, 2003; Lakoff, 2002), there are ways that people
across the ideological spectrum can make their stance under-
standable to a person from the other side. Although much
research has outlined the enormous difficulties involved in fos-
tering productive conversations and collaborations between
liberals and conservatives (e.g., Brandt, Reyna, Chamber,
Crawford, & Wetherell, 2014; Toner, Leary, Asher, &
Jongman-Sereno, 2013), the current research highlights a tech-
nique where supporters of political candidates are responsive to
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
larebiLetaredoMevitavresnoC
Likelihood to Vote for Clinton
Fairness Argument Loyalty Argument
{
*
Figure 2. Likelihood to vote for Clinton depending on argument
condition and participants’ ideology. *p< .05, **p< .01.
6Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
criticism about their favored candidate, and as a result,
decreases the distance between liberals and conservatives.
The effectiveness of moral reframing raises the question of
whether campaigns, pundits, and everyday people actually
employ this technique to affect people’s opinion about polit-
ical candidates. In a first attempt to investigate this question,
we asked liberal Clinton supporters and conservative Trump
supporters to write arguments aimed at convincing those who
endorse the other candidate as to why they should instead
oppose him or her. In addition, we investigated the content
of YouTube videos opposing Hillary Clinton or Donald
Trump. Our results suggested that conservatives used morally
reframed arguments more than liberals (cf. Haidt, 2012).
However, this evidence should be viewed as only preliminary
and fodder for future research (for more information, see
Supplemental Material).
Overall, the present research had several important limita-
tions. First, the support for a moral reframing effect was gen-
erally stronger in Study 1 than in Study 2. This difference
could be driven by a number of factors. For instance, the con-
tent of the fairness and loyalty messages in the two studies
was different, opening up the possibility that the quality or
intensity of the arguments may have differed across studies.
Another possibility could be that Trump’s candidacy might
be more strongly associated with issues of morality than
Clinton’s candidacy. Therefore, it might be easier to stimu-
late people’s moral intuitions relating to Trump. Future
research could potentially address this question by examining
archival data (e.g., open-ended responses collected in polls),
testing the extent to which beliefs about Trump and Clinton
reflect individuals’ core moral values and convictions (cf.
Skitka & Bauman, 2008).
Furthermore, although we found support for the effective-
ness of moral reframing with regard to both attitudes toward the
candidates and behavioral intentions, we did not use measures
of real behavior (cf. Wolsko et al., 2016). Potentially tracking
participants’ actual voting behavior after exposure to reframed
messages would be a promising route for future research.
Furthermore, we only examined messages that appealed to the
fairness and loyalty foundation. We chose these foundations as
our examination of popular media suggested much of the infor-
mation published about the candidates fit within a fairness or
loyalty argument frame. Even so, it is an open question for
future research how influential arguments couched in the other
moral foundations might be.
Additionally, our two studies found an only partially consis-
tent pattern in their moderated mediation analyses. In addition,
the results of the second study should be considered with cau-
tion considering the nonsignificant interaction effects. Future
research is needed to explore the mechanisms underlying the
moral reframing effect in the political elections domain.
Finally, in the present research, we did not have control condi-
tions, and therefore it is impossible to know for sure which of
the two conditions in the studies caused the persuasion effects
we found. However, past research has used control conditions
and found that the effect is in line with the moral reframing
hypothesis (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015), and as such, we
feel confident that the effects we found were due to the morally
reframed conditions.
Overall, our findings add to the growing body of research
demonstrating how important it is to recognize and understand
the moral values of those who take an opposing political posi-
tion (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015; Kidwell et al., 2013;
Wolsko et al., 2016). As a whole, this literature highlights that
the more individuals take the moral perspective of those who
do not agree with them into consideration, the more successful
they will be at reaching those individuals. The present research
demonstrates that this is even the case in the context of one of
the most politically polarizing events—political campaigns.
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, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Supplemental Material
The supplemental material is available in the online version of the arti-
cle. The materials, data, and analysis scripts for all studies can be
accessed via osf.io/wf8xs.
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Author Biographies
Jan G. Voelkel is a research master student at Tilburg University. He is
interested in moral and political psychology, with a focus on the ques-
tion how to overcome the divide between liberals and conservatives.
Matthew Feinberg is an assistant professor of Organizational Beha-
viour at the Rotman School of Management. His research explores
which psychological processes lead individuals to form cohesive
groups and societies, with a focus on morality and political attitudes.
Handling Editor: Jesse Graham
8Social Psychological and Personality Science XX(X)
