Framing Effects on Personal Opinion and Perception of Public Opinion: The Cases of Physician–Assisted Suicide and Social Security

Objective. A growing body of literature on issue framing has demonstrated the conditional influence of issue frames on self–reported opinion. The effects of frames are conditioned by message content, the medium of communication, and the predispositions of respondents. However, the literature has yet to explore the influence of issue frames on respondents’ perceptions of public opinion. We draw from the psychological literatures on cognitive accessibility biases and impersonal impact and construct competing hypotheses concerning the likelihood of issue frames affecting perceptions of opinion. Methods. We test hypotheses using data from an experimental field study that exposed respondents to opposing issue frames on two important issues—reforming Social Security and physician–assisted suicide.Results. Our results largely support the impersonal impact hypothesis. Conclusions. We find that available information from issue frames influences personal–level opinion but in general does not affect perceptions of public opinion. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest avenues for future research.