Want To Defeat A Proposed Public Policy? Just Label Supporters As “EXTREME”

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/extreme.htm

New research shows how support for a generally liked policy can be significantly lowered, simply by associating it with a group seen as “radical” or “extreme.”

In one experiment, researchers found that people expressed higher levels of support for a gender equality policy when the supporters were not specified than when the exact same policy was attributed to “radical feminist” supporters.

These findings show why attacking political opponents as “extremists” is so popular – and so effective, said Thomas Nelson, co-author of the study and associate professor of political science at Ohio State University.

“The beauty of using this ‘extremism’ tactic is that you don’t have to attack a popular value that you know most people support,” Nelson said.

“You just have to say that, in this particular case, the supporters are going too far or are too extreme.”

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Environmental values, for example, may sometimes conflict with economic values if clean air or clean water laws make it more difficult for companies to earn a profit.

“If you want to fight against a proposed environmental law, you can’t publicly say you’re against protecting the environment, because that puts you in the position of fighting a popular value,” Nelson said.

“So instead, you say that proponents of the proposed law are going to extremes, and are taking the value too far.”

One problem with this tactic for society, though, is that it can hurt support of the underlying values, as well as the specific policy.

“If you use this extremism language, it can make people place less of a priority on the underlying value. People may become less likely to think environmentalism or gender equality are important values.”

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