Communicating the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of government policies and their impact on public support: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Abstract

Low public support for government interventions in health, environment and other policy domains can be a barrier to implementation. Communicating evidence of policy effectiveness has been used to influence attitudes towards policies, with mixed results. This review provides the first systematic synthesis of such studies. Eligible studies were randomized controlled experiments that included an intervention group that provided evidence of a policy's effectiveness or ineffectiveness at achieving a salient outcome, and measured policy support. From 6498 abstracts examined, there were 45 effect sizes from 36 eligible studies. In total, 35 (N = 30 858) communicated evidence of effectiveness, and 10 (N = 5078) communicated evidence of ineffectiveness. Random effects meta-analysis revealed that communicating evidence of a policy's effectiveness increased support for the policy (SMD = 0.11, 95% CI [0.07, 0.15], p < 0.0001), equivalent to support increasing from 50% to 54% (95% CI [53%, 56%]). Communicating evidence of ineffectiveness decreased policy support (SMD = −0.14, 95% CI [−0.22, −0.06], p < 0.001), equivalent to support decreasing from 50% to 44% (95% CI [41%, 47%]). These findings suggest that public support for policies in a range of domains is sensitive to evidence of their effectiveness, as well as their ineffectiveness.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190522
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Institute of Health & Neurodevelopment (AIHN)
Additional Information: © 2020 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Last Modified: 02 Oct 2024 07:27
Date Deposited: 30 Mar 2022 14:10
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://royalso ... 098/rsos.190522 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2020-01-15
Accepted Date: 2019-11-13
Authors: Reynolds, J. P. (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-1536-1557)
Stautz, K.
Pilling, M.
Van Der Linden, S.
Marteau, T. M.

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