The effect of political ideology and message frame on donation intent during the COVID-19 pandemic

Patrick van Esch, Cui, Yuanyuan (Gina) and Shailendra Pratap Jain

Journal of Business Research, 2021, vol. 125, issue C, 201-213

Abstract: We investigate COVID-19 related consumers’ donation intent predicated on their political ideology and the message frame - one emphasising the statistical number of affected victims, and the other focusing on a specifically identified victim. Across three studies, we find that the impact of the message frame depends on consumers’ political ideology. Politically conservative consumers respond to the identifiable victim (vs. statistical victims) frame more favorably while politically liberal consumers are indifferent across the two frames (Studies 1 and 2). We further find that this conditional positive effect of identifiable victim frame for conservative consumers is mediated by consumers’ state anxiety evoked by the message frame (Study 3). This paper concludes with contributions to theory, implications for practice, and directions for future inquiries.

Keywords: Message framing; Donation intent; Political ideology; Identifiable victims; Conservative; Liberal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:125:y:2021:i:c:p:201-213

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.12.040

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