Issue Frames and Group-Centrism in American Public Opinion

Public opinion on government policy is group-centric: that is, strongly influenced by the attitudes citizens possess toward the social groups perceived as the beneficiaries of the policy. Though commonplace, this mode of political thinking is not inevitable. In four experiments, we show that groupcentrism hinges in part on how issues are framed in public debate. When issues are framed in ways that draw attention to a policy's beneficiaries, group-centrism increases; when issues are framed in ways that deflect attention away from the beneficiaries, group-centrism declines. We conclude by drawing out the implications of these findings for the concept of frame, considered both as a rhetorical weapon in elites’ hands and as a cognitive structure in citizens’ minds.