Threat as a Motivator of Political Activism: A Field Experiment

Abstract

The research reported here examined the effects of two potential motivators of political activism-policy change threat and policy change opportunity-in a field experiment. Different versions of a letter were sent by a political lobbying organization to potential contributors. One version highlighted threats of undesirable policy changes, another version highlighted opportunities for desirable policy changes, and the third version did neither. Policy change threat increased the number of financial contributions made to the interest group, but policy change opportunity did not. Policy change opportunity increased the number of signed postcards returned to be sent to President Clinton, but policy change threat did not. These findings highlight the impact of interest group recruitment strategies on citizen responsiveness and demonstrate the need to account for sources of motivation in order to more fully understand when, why, and how citizens choose to become politically active.More than a century ago, William James (1890) described the world as a "great blooming, buzzing confusion" (p. 462). People react to their informationrich and ever-changing environment by paying careful attention to only a few stimuli at any given time (see, e.g., Eysenck, 1982). One of the most fundamental questions about human nature concerns how people make choices among the myriad competitors for their cognitive and behavioral energy. In the world of politics, a closely related question is "When do people choose to focus their cognitive and behavioral energies on the political process, and why?"There is a long tradition of work addressing this question in political science. Much of this research shares a conceptualization of participation as motivated by

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