Resistance, Reactance, or Persuasion? Responding to Gun Regulations Public Service Announcements

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: Currently, there is a large disparity in opinion regarding gun safety regulations. 54% of Americans believe that owning guns can prevent people from being victimized of crime in the United States, whereas 40% believe that gun ownership is a danger to American society and its safety (Pew Research, 2015). Due to the polarizing opinions on gun control issues, targeting audiences with effective campaign messages to promote gun safety regulations has been a challenging task for public health advocates. In order to gain public support for stricter gun regulations, an examination of the effectiveness of gun control advocate public service announcements (PSAs) is crucial. This study uses several theories of persuasion, including psychological reactance theory (Dillard & Shen, 2005), resistance theory (Alvaro, Burgeon, Miller, & Hall, 2003), and inoculation theory (counter-arguing theory) (Wood, 2008), to examine audiences’ responding attitude and behavior toward different PSAs. In other words, this study is to test the interaction between audiences’ pre-existing attitudes toward gun regulations and persuasive variables from the above three theories. An example of one of the hypotheses regarding direct effects of PSAs on individuals’ behaviors is “Among subjects who support for stricter gun control policies, persuasive messages emphasizing freedom threats (i.e., pro gun control) will result in 1) greater communicative action, 2) greater behavioral intentions to perform the behavior advocated by the message.” In addition to the direct effects, this study also examines the mediating and moderating role of “counter-arguing behaviors” and “ emotions” in our theoretical model.

Methods: A web-based between-participants experiment was conducted online. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four experimental conditions that differ according to the message positions and contents of the PSAs. Participants were also asked about their pre-existing attitudes regarding gun regulations. The entire sample was divided into two groups where one possesses positive attitude towards gun control policies and another one possesses negative attitude towards the regulations. According to participants’ pre-existing attitudes and the PSA they viewed, all of respondents were grouped into 8 categories (e.g., individuals with positive attitude toward gun control who viewed gun regulations advocate message). A structural equation model will be used to examine the relationships among the persuasive variables we adopted and adapted from the three theories of persuasion. The research is in progress.

Results: We present the results from a four condition between-subjects experiment examining the interplay between pre-existing attitudes toward gun control and persuasive appeals designed to generated support for stricter gun control policies.

Conclusions: Based on the frameworks of three theories of persuasion (i.e., reactance theory, resistance theory and inoculation theory), and persuasive appeals variables, this study aims to understand audiences’ receptivity towards gun control messages. The findings highlight a number of practical implications for the development of future gun regulations campaigns targeting audiences who possesses different attitudes toward gun control issues.

Implications for research and/or practice: Please see conclusions.