How to keep on keeping on: Framing civil rights accomplishments to bolster support for egalitarian policies

• Published in: Journal of experimental social psychology Vol. 47; no. 1; pp. 274 - 277
• Main Authors: Eibach, Richard P., Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 2011; Elsevier; Academic Press
• Subjects: Attitudes; Behavior. Attitude; Biological and medical sciences; Civil rights; Commitment; Equality; Experimental psychology; Framing; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Goal-framing; Progress; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Public policy; Racial inequality; Social activism; Social change; Social movements; Social psychology; Social support; Progress; Racial inequality; Goal-framing; Social movements; Attitudes; Commitment; Social change; Social environment; Human; Social attitude; Social Inequality; Civil law; Right; Equalitarism; Political attitude; Race
• ISSN: 0022-1031; 1096-0465
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.10.005

Drawing attention to historic increases in equality carries the risk of encouraging complacency about the need to further advance equality. This risk may be reduced by carefully framing the interpretation of increased equality. We apply an influential goal-framing model (Fishbach and Zhang, 2008) to test whether framing the accomplishments of the American Civil Rights Movement in terms of progress toward equality vs. commitment to equality influences white Americans' support for further egalitarian policies. In two experiments, we manipulated whether progress or commitment was in mind when participants considered civil rights accomplishments. As hypothesized, participants more strongly supported egalitarian policies when civil rights accomplishments were framed as evidence of commitment to equality than when these same accomplishments were framed as evidence of progress toward equality. We discuss implications for applying the goal-framing model to political goals and the advantages of using experimental methods to study framing processes in social movements.