But Is That Mediator Really the Cause? An Experiment Manipulating Persuasion Knowledge as a Mediator for How Adaptive Frames Create Positive Responses to Climate Change News

Most mediation studies do not provide evidence that mediators are causal, only correlational. This is one of the first in the field to use concurrent double randomization to test causality of a mediator. Previous research showed adaptive frames that do not trigger skeptics’ anti-climate change schemas improve responses to stories and identified the activation of persuasion knowledge as the mediator. In this experiment, persuasion knowledge activation is causal for two of three outcomes, but only correlational for a third. We also report an inconsistent mediation effect, whereby persuasion knowledge activation has a positive direct effect but a negative indirect effect.