Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Message Or Messenger? The Limits Of Moral Leadership, Renan Levine, Laura B. Stephenson
Message Or Messenger? The Limits Of Moral Leadership, Renan Levine, Laura B. Stephenson
Renan Levine
Media coverage of policies sometimes includes quotes from opinion leaders, including clergy and politicians. In an experiment implemented on campuses in two countries, we test the impact of a religious leader and a political leader by seeing how opinions change when these leaders frame their comments using a material or ethical terms. We find that changing the identity of the messenger alters what considerations factor into our subjects’ deliberations about stem-cell research and government spending cuts to pay off the government debt. However, the efficacy of the leader does not depend on the content of the message. Instead, the messenger …