Support For Cause Research Articles

From “Is It Unconfounded?” to “How Much Confounding Would It Take?”: Applying the Sensitivity-Based Approach to Assess Causes of Support for Peace in Colombia

Previous articleNext article No AccessFrom "Is it unconfounded?" to "How much confounding would it take?": Applying the sensitivity-based approach to assess causes of support for peace in ColombiaChad Hazlett and Francesca ParenteChad Hazlett Search for more articles by this author and Francesca Parente Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Just Accepted Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723995 Views: 16Total views on this site HistoryAccepted December 12, 2022 © 2023 Southern Political Science Association. All Rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Perceptions about corporate positioning on controversial sociopolitical issues: Examining big pharma engagement with patient advocacy

There is evidence of the perception that business is not doing enough to address societal problems. As a result, some companies have used corporate activism to demonstrate their support for causes and position themselves on specific issues. These positioning efforts are at the heart of public relations activities with the potential to create changes in socially constructed realities. This research examines the relationships between pharmaceutical companies and patient advocacy, focusing on analyzing companies' engagement in controversial sociopolitical issues. An ethnographic study was conducted for six months — including document analysis, 33 interviews, and participant observation — with a Portuguese patient advocacy group. The CSR domains on thhe websites of seven pharmaceutical companies were also analyzed. Findings suggest that despite financial and technical support, the pharma companies do not publicly engage with the patient advocacy group's main struggles for human rights. Changes in the companies' positioning may improve the perceptions of these stakeholders about their engagement with causes and encourage more robust partnerships toward social change.

Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans' support for partisan violence.

Scholars, policy makers, and the general public have expressed growing concern about the possibility of large-scale political violence in the United States. Prior research substantiates these worries, as studies reveal that many American partisans support the use of violence against rival partisans. Here, we propose that support for partisan violence is based in part on greatly exaggerated perceptions of rival partisans’ support for violence. We also predict that correcting these inaccurate “metaperceptions” can reduce partisans’ own support for partisan violence. We test these hypotheses in a series of preregistered, nationally representative, correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies (total n = 4,741) collected both before and after the 2020 US presidential election and the 2021 US Capitol attack. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that both Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of their rival partisans’ support for violence and willingness to engage in violence were very inaccurate, with estimates ranging from 245 to 442% higher than actual levels. Further, we found that a brief, informational correction of these misperceptions reduced support for violence by 34% (Study 3) and willingness to engage in violence by 44% (Study 4). In the latter study, a follow-up survey revealed that the correction continued to significantly reduce support for violence approximately 1 mo later. Together, these results suggest that support for partisan violence in the United States stems in part from systematic overestimations of rival partisans’ support for violence and that correcting these misperceptions can durably reduce support for partisan violence in the mass public.

The Effects of Construal Level and Donation Magnitude: The Case of Cause-Related Marketing

Marketers are focusing on their corporate social responsibility in recent years, utilizing charity business as an effective sale and marketing strategy. A better understanding of consumer behaviour in relation to cause-related marketing (CRM) is critical, as both marketers and consumers are able to build a win-win relationship. Borrowing the construal level theory, we examined the effects of advertising framing in CRM, focusing on how construal level and donation magnitude could have affected consumer’s attitude and willingness to donate. The study proposes that words induce high construal level that consumers should have higher buying intention and willingness to participate in a word- vs. picture-based advertisement. Consistent with the previous study, the preliminary study had successfully attributed picture vs. words to low vs. high construal level. However, the main study results failed to indicate a higher intention to participate and to buy among consumers in a high (e.g. 25% of the selling price) vs. low donation magnitude (e.g. 5% of the selling price) condition. The contribution of the current study is expected to extend the construal level theory by assessing the donation magnitude, which affecting consumer behaviour in the marketing context. The findings of the studies added to the understanding of construal level and donation magnitude manipulations in CRM, which benefits both the CRM marketers as well as the academic researchers. Besides, this study also demonstrated the potential to develop brand awareness, promote a social cause and inspire consumers to demonstrate support for causes they concern about.

Construal Level Theory as a Framework for Navigating Community Contexts in Tourism Planning

ABSTRACT This methodologically focused paper introduces construal level theory of psychological distance (CLT) as a useful framework for tourism and community researchers and planners. This paper compares how residents’ affective responses of satisfaction vary across envisioned scenarios pertaining to local tourism sites, presented with varying degrees of detail and geographic specificity. Two scenarios are tested across three sites of interest, comparing residents’ responses to the sites envisioned generally to the same sites envisioned with tourists visiting. To pinpoint endogenous factors influencing differences in responses, resident subgroups pertaining to neighborhood, work sector, and frequency encountering tourists are compared, reflecting the specific context of a re-emerging, post-war destination. This research suggests that CLT can be a valuable tool to help tourism planners understand the complexities of affective dimensions that may be present in destination communities and identify root causes of support or resistance for tourism development and projects.

Advocacy as Antidote to Burnout: Perspectives From Intern Year

Advocacy as Antidote to Burnout: Perspectives From Intern Year

Does Trust in Government Increase Support for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments

Why have decades of high and rising inequality in the United States not increased public support for redistribution? An established theory in political science holds that Americans’ distrust of government decreases their support for redistribution, but empirical support draws primarily on regression analyses of national surveys. I discuss the untestable assumptions required for identification with regression modeling and propose an alternative design that uses randomized experiments about political corruption to identify the effect of trust in government on support for redistribution under weaker assumptions. I apply this to three survey experiments and estimate the effects that large, experimentally induced increases in political trust have on support for redistribution. Contrary to theoretical predictions, estimated effects are substantively negligible, statistically indistinguishable from zero, and comparable to estimates from two placebo experiments. I discuss implications for theory building about causes of support for redistribution in an era of rising inequality and eroding confidence in government.

<i>Frondeuses</i> and Feminists in the Work of Arvède Barine (1840–1908)

This article examines Arvède Barine’s extensive and popular published output from the 1880s to 1908, along with an extraordinary cache of letters addressed to Barine and held in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of France. It asserts that in the process of criticizing contemporary feminist activists and celebrating the achievements of women, especially French women, in history, she constructed the historical and cultural distinctiveness of French women as an ideal blend of femininity, accomplishment, and independence. This notion of the French singularity, indeed the superiority of French women, resolved the contradiction between her condemnation of feminism as a transformation of gender relations and her support for causes and reforms that enabled women to lead intellectually and emotionally fulfilling lives. Barine’s work offers another example of the varied ways that women in Third Republic France engaged with public debates about women and gender.

Developing an Advocacy Curriculum: Lessons Learned from a National Survey of Psychiatric Residency Programs.

Advocacy by physicians, defined as a physician's public support for causes, policies, or actions that advance patient health, is increasingly recognized as a professional responsibility as well as a core competency in medical training. The authors describe a survey they conducted on advocacy curricula in psychiatric residency training programs across the USA, from their vantage point as members of an advocacy council within a medical professional organization. Between Fall 2016 and Winter 2018, psychiatry residency programs with advocacy curricula were identified through personal communications with stakeholders as well as a blast email to the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with program leaders at residencies with an advocacy curriculum to collect detailed information on these curricula. Seven psychiatry residency programs with advocacy curricula were identified. All seven programs agreed to be interviewed and are included in the survey results. Lessons learned from this survey include how to approach the development of an advocacy curriculum; the components, attributes, and supports of an effective curriculum; and the challenges commonly encountered by medical educators trying to implement such a curriculum. The authors hope that these observations will contribute to the development of a best practice guideline for advocacy teaching within psychiatry and perhaps for other medical disciplines.

Predicting public support: applying theory to prosocial behaviors

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to apply communication theory to explore and help explain public support for causes and organizations in the form of prosocial behaviors, including donating, volunteering and participating in advocacy efforts.Design/methodology/approachThrough a survey of people (n=1,275) living in the USA who indicated supporting issues they cared about in 2017, this research gathered information about motivations for providing public support for various causes and non-profit organizations.FindingsThe situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) was applied, and support was found for the STOPS model in terms of predicting communicative action. This study also found support for situational activeness influencing other behaviors, including active forms of communication, financial support, volunteer support and other forms of advocacy. Implications for practitioners managing communications or organizations involved in such efforts are discussed.Originality/valueThis research applied STOPS to study behaviors, including communication, volunteering, donating and participating in advocacy efforts as forms of prosocial behavior supporting different organizations related to many important issues. The paper provides theoretical value in terms of adding to the generalizability of the STOPS model for communications scholars and discusses practical implications for non-profit and other types of organizations.

Jobs, crime, proximity and boats: explaining Australian public attitudes to immigrant numbers

ABSTRACTDespite the importance of immigration to Australia, there is little systematic research on the causes of support among Australian citizens for increased, stable or decreased immigration. This paper advances our understanding of Australian public attitudes to immigration levels in the light of the established international literature on public opinion and immigration. Using 2013 Australian Electoral Study (AES) data, we show that, as in other countries, Australian citizens’ attitudes to immigrant numbers are partly driven by a combination of sociotropic economic considerations and perceptions of the socio-cultural impact of immigrants. In addition, we argue that political mobilisation has an impact on attitudes toward immigration that has not received sufficient attention. We demonstrate that citizens who accepted the Coalition's rhetoric on asylum seeker arrivals were more likely to want overall immigrant numbers reduced. Finally, we combine the individual level AES data with electoral district level data to test the impact of contact with immigrants on attitudes to immigrant numbers. Australians living in electoral districts with higher percentages of non-white immigrants are more likely to want lower immigrant numbers than those living in districts with fewer non-white immigrants.

External Supporters and Negotiated Settlement: Political Bargaining in Solving Governmental Incompatibility

External supporters have heterogeneous preferences over civil war outcomes depending on the issues at stake. In this article, the bargaining model and empirical study show that such preferences of external supporters need to be considered not only when analyzing the causes of support but also when analyzing how they affect a conflict. By adding an external supporter to a traditional conflict bargaining model as a strategic actor who receives a payoff from the political division, this article investigates how the preferences of external supporters influence the likelihood of a peace agreement in civil wars over a government. I demonstrate that a peace agreement is more likely to happen when the external supporters of the government side are not satisfied with the current political status quo of the supported state. The empirical analysis of political civil wars from 1976 to 2009 supports the implications of the bargaining model.

Operator Knowledge Inclusion in Data-Mining Approaches for Product Quality Assurance using Cause-Effect Graphs

Product quality is one of the crucial factors influencing customer satisfaction and loyalty, and of course, a company’s reputation in general. A high quantity of non-conforming products increases risks and costs of production. For certain types of products, it is difficult to measure quality during production, therefore it is assessed afterwards in a laboratory. We propose to determine the relationship between process and quality parameters. The identified process parameters can then be used in future to estimate and predict quality. In this paper we present a method to develop a Cause-Effect Graph (CEG) based on expert knowledge (qualitative part) to provide visualization of the causes and effects to support machine operators. To validate the CEG we used data mining methods (quantitative part). We apply our approach to an industrial use case (stretch film production), collecting the expert knowledge through interviews and card-sorting techniques, and performing a logistic regression and decision tree analysis in the data-mining part. The validity of the proposed method is proven for continuous technical processes with certain important criteria of classification, e.g. availability of process variables, their amount, relationship between process and quality relevant variables. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is presented by the matching of experts’ knowledge with results of data mining in order to improve the production process understanding and visual support of causes and effects of production process for operators.

Motivating intention to take action on behalf of an out-group: implications for the use of advocacy messages in social marketing strategies

ABSTRACTIn psychological research, the Social Identity Theory has been used to explain people’s motivation to take action in support of causes predominantly with a focus on in-group action. This study takes up the call to extend the limited attention given to intent-to-act on behalf of an out-group. Our research investigates support for the legalisation of medical marijuana (an out-group) and concludes that message structure is critical to increasing the likelihood of intent-to-act in support of an out-group. Specifically, we show that messages delivered from a legitimate advocate for the issue will generate empathy towards those affected and anger towards the perceived injustice, motivating intent to take action. Social marketers, charged with engaging communities to support programmes targeted at disadvantaged minority groups within the population, will benefit from the results of this research.

Who supports international law, and why?: The United States, the European Union, and the international legal order: Table 1.

Over the past decade, it has become commonplace to contrast the positions of the United States and the European Union toward the rule of international law, with the US being characterized at best by ambivalence, and at worst as a “rogue nation.” The EU, by contrast, has been seen as a strong supporter of international law. This symposium interrogates this conventional wisdom, formulating and testing a theoretical framework that attempts to disaggregate both the nature and the causes of support for international law. This article is organized in five sections. Section 1 introduces the aims of the symposium and the basic elements of its theoretical framework. Section 2 problematizes the dependent variable, “support” for international law, disaggregating that concept into four discrete dimensions of leadership, consent, compliance, and internalization. Section 3 identifies four sets of independent variables—international and domestic, political and legal—that might account for observed US–EU differences. Section 4 introduces the five empirical papers in the symposium, which deal with human rights law, criminal law, environmental law, trade law, and the internalization of international law by domestic courts. Section 5 concludes with preliminary findings. With respect to the dependent variable, we find considerable differences between the US and the EU, but we also identify important nuances in the nature of those differences, which center primarily around the dimensions of consent and internalization. In terms of the independent variables, we find that the roots of US and EU differences are complex and multi-causal, defying any effort to reduce those differences to simple contrasts such as American exceptionalism or the EU’s normative difference.

Social media slacktivism for the health advocate

Activism through social media, so-called slacktivism, is often seen as a way for people to promote change or show support for causes without requiring any real effort. Though effective at reaching a large audience, this type of advocacy often results in very little action. Private displays of support such as signing a confidential petition, however, do lead to further action. Physicians, therefore can use social media to reinforce the health advocacy messages delivered in traditional patient encounters, reaching a large audience of people who have been individually prepared to take action. Slacktivism alone is not enough to be a health advocate, but it is an important tool to increase scope and effectiveness of health promotion.

A Model of Climate Belief Profiles: How Much Does It Matter If People Question Human Causation?

Despite the weight of scientific evidence presented in recent assessment reports of the IPCC, there remains some skepticism among the public that the climate is changing and whether such change is caused by human activity. We modeled climate change belief profiles using Latent Class Analysis in a New Zealand national probability sample (N = 6,072). Roughly 50% of New Zealanders believed that climate change was real and caused by humans, with 30% undecided. The majority of New Zealanders believe that climate change is real and likely caused by humans, with one in six remaining skeptical. We identified two types of climate skeptics, those who did not believe in climate change (7%), and those who believed climate change was real but not caused by humans (10%). Beliefs about the reality of climate change were more predictive than beliefs about human cause of support for carbon emissions policy and self‐reported proenvironmental behavior. Our model indicates that persuading people about the reality of climate change will predict greater incremental variance in behavior and policy attitudes than persuading people of its human cause; although persuading people of both will be still more effective due to the synergistic interaction of these dual beliefs.

Working for a higher purpose: A theoretical framework for commitment to organization-sponsored causes

We explicate the theoretical foundations of employee commitment to organization-sponsored causes—voluntary, socially responsible practices or programs espoused by an organization—as targets of employee commitment. Although scholarly interest in organization-sponsored causes is increasing, little is understood about the mechanisms for employee involvement in organization-sponsored causes, since the motives and context for participation may differ significantly from participation in such causes outside of work. We propose that commitment to organization-sponsored causes can be conceptualized in terms of affective and normative mindsets and suggest that these mindsets, both separately and in combination, influence employees' behavioral support for the cause. We also draw upon the theory of planned behavior to suggest that employee perceptions regarding how an organization supports employee participation in the cause may influence their behavioral support for the cause. Finally, we describe the interrelationships among commitment to the organization-sponsored cause, employees' behavioral support for the organization-sponsored cause, and organizational commitment.

Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan

Policy debates on strategies to end extremist violence frequently cite poverty as a root cause of support for the perpetrating groups. There is little evidence to support this contention, particularly in the Pakistani case. Pakistan's urban poor are more exposed to the negative externalities of militant violence and may in fact be less supportive of the groups. To test these hypotheses we conducted a 6,000‐person, nationally representative survey of Pakistanis that measured affect toward four militant organizations. By applying a novel measurement strategy, we mitigate the item nonresponse and social desirability biases that plagued previous studies due to the sensitive nature of militancy. Contrary to expectations, poor Pakistanis dislike militants more than middle‐class citizens. This dislike is strongest among the urban poor, particularly those in violent districts, suggesting that exposure to terrorist attacks reduces support for militants. Long‐standing arguments tying support for violent organizations to income may require substantial revision.

Analyzing cause and effect in environmental assessments: using weighted evidence from the literature

AbstractSound decision making in environmental research and management requires an understanding of causal relationships between stressors and ecological responses. However, demonstrating cause–effect relationships in natural systems is challenging because of difficulties with natural variability, performing experiments, lack of replication, and the presence of confounding influences. Thus, even the best-designed study may not establish causality. We describe a method that uses evidence available in the extensive published ecological literature to assess support for cause–effect hypotheses in environmental investigations. Our method, called Eco Evidence, is a form of causal criteria analysis—a technique developed by epidemiologists in the 1960s—who faced similar difficulties in attributing causation. The Eco Evidence method is an 8-step process in which the user conducts a systematic review of the evidence for one or more cause–effect hypotheses to assess the level of support for an overall question. In c...