The identical policy pairing flips majority support when status quo moves

Evidence

Imagine there were a presidential contest between two candidates, Frank and Carl. Carl wishes to keep the rate of inflation and unemployment at its current level. The rate of inflation is currently at 23%, and the rate of unemployment is currently at 22%. Frank proposes a policy that would increase the rate of inflation by 19% while decreasing the rate of unemployment by 7%. Suppose that as a citizen of Alpha you were asked to cast your vote for either Frank or Carl. Please indicate your vote. [Frank, 39%; Carl, 61%] It is easy to see that problems 5 and 6 offer the same choice between Frank’s policy (42%, 15%) and Carl’s policy (23%, 22%). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2448

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs with location 2447: together they demonstrate that identical tradeoffs get opposite majorities purely from reference-point framing. — connects to: Latent public opinion rarely diverges from expressed collective policy preferences — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 22