“It's a war! It's a battle! It's a fight!”

• Verfasst von: Schnepf, Julia [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Christmann, Ursula [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: “It's a war! It's a battle! It's a fight!”
• Titelzusatz: do militaristic metaphors increase people's threat perceptions and support for COVID-19 policies?
• Verf.angabe: Julia Schnepf, Ursula Christmann
• E-Jahr: 2021
• Jahr: 02 September 2021
• Umfang: 20 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 04.11.2021 ; Epub ahead of print
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: International journal of psychology
• Ort Quelle: Chichester [u.a.] : Wiley, 1966
• Jahr Quelle: 2021
• Band/Heft Quelle: ?(2021), ?, Seite 1-20
• ISSN Quelle: 1464-066X
• DOI: doi:10.1002/ijop.12797
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: COVID-19
• Sach-SW: Health communication
• Sach-SW: Metaphor framing
• Sach-SW: Policy support
• K10plus-PPN: 1776217829

Abstract

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world employed militaristic metaphors to draw attention to the dangers of the virus. But, do militaristic metaphors truly affect individuals' perceived threat of the COVID-19 virus and increase their support for corresponding restrictive policies? This study assessed the effects of fictitious newspaper articles that described COVID-19 policies using similarly negatively valenced metaphors but with differing militaristic connotations (e.g., “war” vs. “struggle”). Overall, data from three framing experiments (N = 1114) in Germany and the United States indicate limited evidence on the effectiveness of the tested militaristic metaphors. In the U.S. context, the non-militaristic concept of struggle was consistently more strongly associated with the desired outcomes than militaristic metaphors were. In Studies 2 and 3, we also tested whether reporting using a narrative or straightforward facts had additional influence on the framing effect. A congruency effect of the use of a narrative and of warfare metaphors was found in the German sample, but not in that of the United States. Results of post-experimental norming studies (N = 437) in both countries revealed that the metaphor of war is associated with people ascribing greater responsibility to their governments, whereas the concept of struggle triggers a sense of individual responsibility. These results are discussed in terms of the usefulness and appropriateness of militaristic metaphors in the context of a pandemic.