Choice Matters: Responses to Political Information Vary in Randomized vs. Selective Exposure Contexts

ABSTRACT

Three studies (study 1, 2a and 2b) were conducted to examine the effects of exposure type (randomized, selective) to negative and positive political information. Study 1 focused on a randomized exposure situation whereas study 2a and 2b investigated selective exposure conditions. Participants (N = 274 for study 1, N = 197 for study 2a, and N = 197 for study 2b) were recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Drawing from the literature on negativity bias and socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), we found young individuals, as compared to older individuals, were more affected by negative political information, but only when exposure to the information was randomized. When given the opportunity for selective exposure to positive, negative, or neutral political information, effects associated with SST and the negativity bias were weakened while effects associated with political uses and approaches were bolstered. Implications as to how different types of exposure to negative and positive political information influence responses to information and their relation to SST, negativity bias, and uses and gratifications are discussed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the research funding received from the University of Miami Center for Communication, Culture, and Change for the execution of this project.

Notes on contributors

Juliana Fernandes

Juliana Fernandes is an assistant professor of advertising at the University of Florida. Her research interests include effects and uses of negative information in persuasive communications, political communication, and social media. She has published in journals such as Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, Mass Communication & Society, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journalism, and The Journal of Social Media in Society.

Nicky Lewis

Nicky Lewis (Ph.D., Indiana University–Bloomington, 2015) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests center on the social psychological processes and effects of mass media.

Cheng Hong

Cheng Hong is an assistant professor at California State University Sacramento. She obtained her Ph.D. from University of Miami. Her research areas include corporate social advocacy, corporate social responsibility, consumer behavior of boycotting/buycotting, and computer-mediated communication. She has published in a variety of journals such as Journal of Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Advertising, Computers in Human Behavior, Public Relations Review, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Internet Research.