PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Political pros no better than public in predicting which messages persuade

2024-11-01
(Press-News.org) Political campaigns spend big bucks hiring consultants to craft persuasive messaging, but a new study coauthored by Yale political scientist Joshua L. Kalla demonstrates that political professionals perform no better than laypeople in predicting which messages will sway voters.

In the study, Kalla and his coauthors evaluated how well sample groups of political practitioners — professionals who work for political campaigns, polling firms, and advocacy organizations — and members of the public could predict the effectiveness of 172 campaign messages concerning 21 political issues, including legalizing marijuana, cancelling student debt, and increasing border security.

They found that both groups performed barely better than chance and that the practitioners were no more perceptive than laypeople in identifying messaging that resonates with people.

“We found that neither political practitioners nor the mass public are particularly accurate in predicting which persuasive messages are more effective than others,” said Kalla, associate professor of political science in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “This suggests that political practitioners who craft language intended to persuade have fairly poor intuitions about which messages people will find persuasive.”

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was coauthored by David E. Brookman, Christian Caballero, and Matthew Easton, all of the University of California, Berkeley.

For the study, the researchers gathered 172 text-based political messages that political practitioners have used to support or oppose 21 distinct issues. They pulled the messages from sources such as voter guides published by various advocacy organizations or the social media accounts of prominent politicians.

An example is a message used by the Marijuana Policy Project to support the legalization of cannabis: “Polls show that a strong and growing majority of Americans agree it is time to end cannabis prohibition. Nationwide, a recent Gallup poll found that 66% support making marijuana use legal for adults.”

To measure the effectiveness of these messages, the researchers conducted a large-scale survey experiment, in which they randomly assigned 23,167 participants into either a treatment group or a control group. The treatment groups were presented with messages for three specific issues; the control group saw no messages. Then they questioned participants in both the treatment and control groups on their opinions of the issues, for a total of 67,215 observations from the participants. The researchers used this data to estimate the efficacy of each message.

Next, they asked 1,524 political practitioners with varied experience and expertise and 21,247 laypeople to predict the messages’ effectiveness. (Ninety-one percent of the practitioners reported being directly involved with developing messaging.) Both groups did little better predicting the messages’ persuasiveness than if they had guessed randomly.

The study showed that the members of the public believed that other people are more persuadable than the initial survey showed or the practitioners expected. But after accounting for those inflated expectations, practitioners did not predict meaningfully better than laypeople, the study found.

Among the political practitioners, the study found that experience or issue expertise did not translate into a greater ability to identify effective messages.

The findings suggest that, rather than relying on their intuition, political practitioners should consider incorporating data-science techniques into their evaluations of potential messages, said Kalla, a faculty fellow at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

“The main takeaway here is that political practitioners have tools available to help them identify effective messages without having to rely on their gut feeling,” he said. “They could use survey experiments similar to what we did in this study. We see political campaigns already doing that, and I suspect more will adopt such techniques moving forward.”

 

#  #  #

 

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Investment in pediatric emergency care could save more than 2,100 young lives annually

2024-11-01
In emergencies, children have distinct needs because of their unique physiological, emotional and developmental characteristics. But 83% of emergency departments nationwide are not fully prepared to meet those needs — which can be life-threatening for a child in cases of severe illness or injury. A new Oregon Health & Science University-led study, published today in JAMA Network Open, found that bridging that gap, known as becoming “pediatric ready,” could prevent the deaths of more than 2,100 children each year with modest financial investment. ...

The dynamic core of black holes

2024-11-01
Black holes continue to captivate scientists: they are purely gravitational objects, remarkably simple, yet capable of hiding mysteries that challenge our understanding of natural laws. Most observations thus far have focused on their external characteristics and surrounding environment, leaving their internal nature largely unexplored. A new study, conducted through a collaboration between the University of Southern Denmark, Charles University in Prague, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) in Trieste, and Victoria University of Wellington ...

Improving energy production by boosting singlet fission process

Improving energy production by boosting singlet fission process
2024-11-01
Fukuoka, Japan—In organic molecules an exciton is a particle bound pair of an electron (negative charge) and its hole (positive charge). They are held together by Coulombic attraction and can move within molecular assemblies. Singlet fission (SF) is a process where an exciton is amplified, and two triplet excitons are generated from a singlet exciton. This is caused by the absorption of a single particle of light, or photon, in molecules called chromophores (molecules that absorb specific wavelengths of light). Controlling the molecular orientation and arrangement of chromophores is crucial for achieving high SF efficiency in materials with strong potential for optical ...

Smoking cessation and incident cardiovascular disease

2024-11-01
About The Study: In this cohort study, smoking and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk exhibited a dose-dependent association, with light ex-smokers having a CVD risk similar to that of never-smokers relatively soon after smoking cessation. For heavy ex-smokers, greater than 25 years might be required for the residual CVD risk to align with that of never-smokers.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Seung Yong Shin, MD, PhD, email theshin04@korea.ac.kr. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

Cannabis use during early pregnancy following recreational cannabis legalization

2024-11-01
About The Study: In this time-series study, recreational cannabis legalization implementation in California was associated with an increase in rates of cannabis use during early pregnancy, defined by both self-report and toxicology testing, driven by individuals living in jurisdictions that allowed adult-use retailers. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kelly C. Young-Wolff, PhD, MPH, email kelly.c.young-wolff@kp.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.3656) Editor’s Note: Please see the article ...

Research shows Cleveland Clinic’s therapeutic virtual yoga program can be effective for chronic low back pain

2024-11-01
Research Shows Cleveland Clinic’s Therapeutic Virtual Yoga Program Can Be Effective for Chronic Low Back Pain  Participants also reported better sleep quality and reduced use of pain medications   UNDER EMBARGO Friday, November 01, 2024, 11:00 a.m. ET, CLEVELAND: Cleveland Clinic researchers found that a 12-week therapeutic virtual yoga program for chronic low back pain can be a feasible, safe and effective treatment option. The findings are published in JAMA Network Open.   Chronic low back pain is very common — up to 20% of adults worldwide have long-lasting or recurrent lower back pain. In severe cases, ...

Closing in on Parkinson’s Disease proteins in extracellular vesicles in the blood

Closing in on Parkinson’s Disease proteins in extracellular vesicles in the blood
2024-11-01
Closing in on Parkinson’s Disease proteins in extracellular vesicles in the blood Precision diagnostics for diseases that affect the brain and other organs brought closer by new ability to exclusively access contents of organ-derived extracellular vesicles in blood By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — Brain disorders like Parkinson’s (PD) or Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) start to develop in patients much earlier than when their first clinical symptoms appear. Treating patients at these early stages could slow or even stop their ...

Regional and global experts convene in Accra, Ghana to update cancer treatment guidelines for Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional and global experts convene in Accra, Ghana to update cancer treatment guidelines for Sub-Saharan Africa
2024-11-01
Accra, GHANA [October 29, 2024] — International oncology experts are gathering in Accra, Ghana for a series of meetings beginning today, to update cancer treatment recommendations in the NCCN Harmonized Guidelines™ for Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the latest event from a longstanding collaboration between the African Cancer Coalition (ACC), American Cancer Society (ACS), and National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®), and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) that collectively ...

China University of Geosciences (Beijing) unveils clues to an enigmatic geological process

China University of Geosciences (Beijing) unveils clues to an enigmatic geological process
2024-11-01
Cratons are fascinating yet enigmatic geological formations. Known to be relatively stable portions of the Earth’s continental crust, cratons have remained largely unchanged for billions of years. Although cratons have survived many geological events, some are undergoing decratonization—a process characterized by their deformation and eventual destruction. For example, the North China Craton (NCC), an ancient continental crust block, is known to have begun extensive decratonization during the Mesozoic era, largely due to tectonic and geochemical modifications and destabilization of its base (or ‘keel’). However, explaining the mechanisms ...

Fueling greener aviation with hydrogen

2024-11-01
Despite ongoing efforts to curb CO2 emissions with electric and hybrid vehicles, other forms of transportation remain significant contributors of greenhouse gases. To address this issue, old technologies are being revamped to make them greener, such as the reintroduction of sailing vessels in shipping and new uses for hydrogen in aviation. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering have used computer modeling to study the feasibility and challenges of hydrogen-powered aviation. “While there is a long way to go for hydrogen aviation to be realized at scale, we hope that our ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

The Lancet: Deeply entrenched racial and geographic health disparities in the USA have increased over the last two decades—as life expectancy gap widens to 20 years

2 MILLION mph galaxy smash-up seen in unprecedented detail

Scientists find a region of the mouse gut tightly regulated by the immune system

How school eligibility influences the spread of infectious diseases: Insights for future outbreaks

UM School of Medicine researchers link snoring to behavioral problems in adolescents without declines in cognition

The Parasaurolophus’ pipes: Modeling the dinosaur’s crest to study its sound #ASA187

St. Jude appoints leading scientist to create groundbreaking Center of Excellence for Structural Cell Biology

Hear this! Transforming health care with speech-to-text technology #ASA187

Exploring the impact of offshore wind on whale deaths #ASA187

Mass General Brigham and BIDMC researchers unveil an AI protein engineer capable of making proteins ‘better, faster, stronger’

Metabolic and bariatric surgery safe and effective for patients with severe obesity

Smarter city planning: MSU researchers use brain activity to predict visits to urban areas

Using the world’s fastest exascale computer, ACM Gordon Bell Prize-winning team presents record-breaking algorithm to advance understanding of chemistry and biology

Jeffrey Hubbell joins NYU Tandon to lead new university-wide health engineering initiative & expand the school’s bioengineering focus

Fewer than 7% of global hotspots for whale-ship collisions have protection measures in place

Oldies but goodies: Study shows why elderly animals offer crucial scientific insights

Math-selective US universities reduce gender gap in STEM fields

Researchers identify previously unknown compound in drinking water

Chloronitramide anion – a newly characterized contaminant prevalent in chloramine treated tap water

Population connectivity shapes cultural complexity in chimpanzees

Direct hearing tests show that minke whales can hear high-frequency sounds

Whale-ship collision risk mapped across Earth’s oceans

Bye-bye microplastics: new plastic is recyclable and fully ocean-degradable

Unveiling nature of metal-support interaction: AI-driven breakthrough in catalysis

New imaging method enables detailed RNA analysis of the whole brain

Stability of perovskite solar cells doubled with protective coating

Chemists create world’s thinnest spaghetti

Empowering neuroscience: Large open brain models released

From traditional to technological: Advancements in fresco conservation

Design and imagination as essential tools during the climate crisis

[Press-News.org] Political pros no better than public in predicting which messages persuade