Exploring the Shift in Pro‐American Attitudes and Influencing Factors: An Analysis Using a Quasi‐experimental Design of Taiwanese Students

Abstract

How can pro‐American attitudes be measured? What factors influence shifts in these attitudes? Anchored in institutional identity theory, this study constructs a pro‐American attitude scale and posits three hypotheses concerning Taiwanese consciousness, the evaluation of interdependent benefits, and political learning to elucidate the shift in pro‐American attitudes. Targeting Taiwanese students, this study employs a quasi‐experimental design for data collection and linear regression for hypothesis testing. The findings indicate that from February to June 2023, 37.68% of participants demonstrated a decrease in pro‐American attitudes, 36.24% demonstrated an increase, and 26.09% remained unchanged. Participants in the political learning experimental group displayed a shift in pro‐American attitudes in contrast to the control group. The regression model developed in this study accounted for 25.07% of the variance in the shift in Taiwanese students' pro‐American attitudes, and all hypotheses were empirically supported. An increase in Taiwanese consciousness or frequency of political learning corresponds to a decrease in pro‐American attitudes. Conversely, an elevated evaluation of Taiwan–America interdependent benefits correlates with an increase in pro‐American attitudes. This study demonstrates that political learning can mitigate the enhancing effect of political communication on pro‐American attitudes, thus offering a unique contribution to academic and practical fields.