Page 286 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

262 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

in their analysis of the California campaign to limit youth access to fire-
arms made the case that a key to public support was the campaigns’ advo-
cacy for concrete policies that were viewed as effective. For example,
Wallack and colleagues (2005) reported that a key driver of policies ban-
ning youth access to firearms was poll results indicating that most voters
believed that the problem of youth violence could be best solved through
prevention rather than through incarceration. Parallel studies (Richter,
Vaughan, & Foster, 2004; Timberlake, Lock, & Rasinski, 2003) found that
when individuals were given choices among policy solutions, they chose
those remedies with greater perceived relative efficacy.
self-interest and public support. Pereira and Van Ryzin (1998) made
the case that numerous studies investigating social spending and welfare
policies have found that support for spending is positively associated with
proxies for being a user of those services. The most common translation of
this idea into the alcohol and tobacco domain is the hypothesis that the
extent to which a person drinks or smokes will be negatively associated
with support for policies that restrict, tax, or punish smoking or drinking
related behaviors. These hypotheses are supported by numerous studies in
both the smoking (Brooks & Mucci, 2001; Miller & Kriven, 2001) and
drinking (Richter, Vaughan, & Foster, 2004; Wagenaar & Streff, 1990)
domains.
An interesting twist on the self-interest motive arises in cases where
individuals engage in behaviors that they cognitively understand they
should not engage in. These individuals need—and in some cases want—a
crutch, and a ‘law” can provide them with the external support they need
so that they can act in accord with their cognitive side. In the language of
behavioral economics, supporting a policy that restricts a particular be-
havior is a form of precommitment. Smoking restrictions have provided a
fertile field for investigating this idea because the vast majority of smokers
have (at the very least) mixed feelings about smoking. Both Kan (2006)
and Hersch, Del Rossi, and Viscusi (2004) found a positive association
between planning to quit in the next six months and an individual’s degree
of support for a ban. The authors argued that this association reflected the
smokers’ beliefs that the ban would help them quit.
ideology and public support. There are at least two important variants
of the argument that ideological beliefs are associated with an individual’s
attitude toward public policy interventions. In the social welfare/social
spending literature (see Pereira & Van Ryzin, 1998), there are numerous
studies that have found that self-described liberals (Democrats) are more
supportive of welfare programs and spending than self-described conserva-
tives (Republicans). In general, this conceptualization of the ideology-policy