2.2 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| When Contact Changes Minds | 1/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Contact_Changes_Minds | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:31:21.307446+00:00 | kb-cron |
"When Contact Changes Minds: An Experiment on Transmission of Support for Gay Equality" is a fraudulent article by then-UCLA political science graduate student Michael LaCour and Columbia University political science professor Donald Green. The article was published in the academic journal Science in December 2014, and retracted in May 2015 after it emerged that the data in the study had been forged by LaCour. The article purported to demonstrate that people's minds on the issue of gay marriage could be changed by conversations with gay canvassers, but not with straight canvassers.
== Study == The authors claimed to have investigated whether gay or straight messengers were effective at encouraging voters to support same-sex marriage and whether attitude change persisted and spread to others in voters’ social networks. The purported results, measured by an unrelated panel survey, show that both gay and straight canvassers produced large effects initially, but only gay canvassers’ effects persisted in 3-week, 6-week, and 9-month follow-ups. LaCour and Green (2014) also found strong evidence of within-household transmission of opinion change, but only in the wake of conversations with gay canvassers. The article is ranked in the top 5% of all research output, as scored using Altmetrics. The purported findings made international headlines and received wide media attention including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, and on This American Life. The study attracted widespread attention, in part because it seemed to challenge the conventional understanding of social persuasion that people tend not to change their point of view even when presented with contrasting information. The Yes Campaign in Ireland stated that LaCour and Green (2014) "provided a template" for campaigners to use one-to-one contact and first person accounts to reach out to more conservative voters, leading to the historic Irish referendum legalizing gay marriage on May 22, 2015.