Getting the Message? Choice, Self-Selection, and the Efficacy of Social Movement Arguments

Abstract

The dynamics of choice and self-selection are central features of politics but absent from most experimental designs. We show how designs that incorporate choice, by allowing some subjects the option to receive or avoid treatment, can be extended by randomizing conditional on subjects’ treatment choices to answer further questions of interest while preserving statistical power. We apply this design to study how the gender of messengers for the #MeToo social movement conditions who receives the movement’s message and how they respond. Our results, from both convenience and nationally representative samples, suggest that #MeToo movement’s message reaches a wide audience with the intended effect. The potential for backlash in response to the message appears limited but more likely when this message is delivered by a woman.

Messengers Matter: Why Advancing Gender Equity Requires Male Allies

“…Even in the absence of overt discrimination, men can be allies in the fight for gender equity. Our research used a choice-based experimental design that allowed respondents to either choose to listen to a woman’s perspective on the #MeToo movement or to avoid that content (Testa et al forthcoming). Among those who avoided the message, we used a second round of randomization to assess how those who avoided the message from a woman reacted to that same message when provided by a different woman or a man 1 .…”