Conclusion
This study attempted to explore the lasting effects of a past moral panic when it reappears in the political arena. This was done by operationalizing the theoretical concept of moral panic to manipulate in a 5 × 3 × 2 quasi-experimental experiment. The moderating effects of lifetime experience with classic psychedelics and respondents’ age were investigated to answer the two research questions of this study: To what extent does falling back on ‘traditional moral panic rhetoric’ in
32 As a robustness check, the same interaction regression was ran using a binary moral panic variable: simply control versus manipulation. See the multivariate regression output and the conditional effects in appendix 3.
36 campaigns influence citizens’ electoral support compared to using neutral rhetoric, and to what extent is this process moderated by lifetime experience with classic psychedelics?, and How does age moderate citizens’ electoral support when being presented with ‘traditional moral panic rhetoric’, and how does lifetime experience with classic psychedelics influence this relationship?. This study showed that being presented with a political campaign ad which contained traditional moral panic rhetoric, in any strength (1−4), has a negative effect on respondents’ self-indicated electoral support – for respondents with as well as without LECP, and for each age group. The results of the regression analyses lead to an acceptance of H1a33, but a rejection of H1b34. This study finds support for the expectation that respondents with LECP respond negatively to being presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric surrounding psychedelics. The hypothesized positive effect of traditional moral panic rhetoric for respondents without LECP was not supported; the data showed that they, too, responded negatively to traditional moral panic rhetoric. However, the strength of the effect of traditional moral panic rhetoric does differ based on LECP. Statistically significant results found that respondents with LECP respond more than twice as negatively to being presented with an increasing moral panic compared to respondents without LECP (−.875 compared to −.418), resulting in an overall lower electoral support. Generally, respondents with LECP who were shown the neutral (control) campaign clip scored 1.4 points higher on their electoral support than respondents without LECP.
Both these findings thus confirm that respondents’ LECP moderates the effect of traditional moral panic rhetoric on electoral support and findings suggest that citizens’ personal experiences with the controversial topic in question greatly influence their response to being presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric.
Respondents age was also proven to moderate the strength of the effect of traditional moral panic rhetoric on electoral support. Overall, all thee age groups (moral panic, moral panic’s legacy,
33 Hypothesis 1a (H1a): For those who have lifetime experience with classic psychedelics, being presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric will lead to lower electoral support than not being presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric.
34 Hypothesis 1b (H1b): For those who have no lifetime experience with classic psychedelics, being presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric will lead to higher electoral support than not being presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric.
37 psychedelic renaissance) responded negatively to traditional moral panic rhetoric. This effect was strongest for the group who grew up internalizing the moral panics’ legacy (legacy group).
Furthermore, a trend became visible of the two age groups after the moral panic showing an increasing electoral support for the neutral campaign clip, indicating that the younger generations are holding increasingly more positive attitudes towards exploring the medical use of classic psychedelics. The overall negative effect of the manipulation was regardless of respondents’ LECP, which was not proven to be a statistically significant moderator of the moderating effect of age.
However, the conditional effects do indicate that respondents who are younger and who have lifetime experience tend to respond more negatively to traditional moral panic rhetoric than respondents who are older and have no lifetime experience. These findings suggest that a moral panics’ institutional legacy should not be underestimated in terms of long-term effects of citizens’
perception towards the controversial topic in question. Respondents who were socialized during the aftermath of a moral panic which left an institutional legacy, appear to get triggered by old stereotypes more strongly than respondents who grew up in the time that they were created and disseminated. All in all, politicians who wish to discuss the potential medical use of classic psychedelics can best stay away from traditional moral panic rhetoric. It appears that the public opinion has changed enough in the past 60 years to be able to have an unbiased, factual conversation about the pros and cons of psychedelics in healthcare.
Discussion
The findings of this study imply that a moral panics’ institutional legacy can have long lasting effects which can be triggered easily when presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric – but they are not always similar to the effect it had during the moral panic itself. This study finds that all respondents who were presented with traditional moral panic rhetoric showed a sharp decrease in their electoral support. This is especially the case for people who grew up internalizing the legacy of the moral panic (they portray the strongest negative effect). A moral panic’s legacy is
38 of course a consequence of the moral panic itself, locking the moral panic rhetoric and anxiety into the societal and institutional fabric of a country in which generations of people are socialized.
However, when public opinion changes, so can the contemporary effect of a historical moral panic.
This study thus finds support for the claim that moral panic, in their demise, can result in long-term societal and cultural change through institutionalization of the moral panic (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p.246). This study finds, however, that the public opinion about the institutionalization itself can change over time.
This study furthermore finds an interesting distinction between the group of respondents who grew up internalizing the actual moral panic (pre institutionalization) and the later generations.
The oldest group displays an striking pattern: out of all three age groups, they displayed the lowest electoral support when presented with the neutral campaign clip lobbying for a broad societal discussion about the potential medical use of psychedelics. When presented with the concerned and hostile clips, their electoral support dips even lower. However, when the moral panic increases – the anxiety is claimed to be widespread in the consensus clip – respondents’ electoral support rises. When they are presented with a full-blown moral panic, told that users die by the dozens and presented with other disproportional, traditional rhetoric, their electoral support rises so much that it nearly overtakes their electoral support for the neutral campaign clip (see figure 5). This implies that the disproportional rhetoric, which encapsulates the extremely high threat perception which characterizes the height of a moral panic, potentially triggers the long term memory of respondents who internalized classic psychedelics to result in downright dangerous outcomes. The moral panic group shows effects that are in line with theories surrounding neurological triggering of related concepts in the long term memory (Hebb, 1949; Collins & Loftus, 1975) and their associated potential outcomes (Damasio, 1994). Their low electoral support when being presented with the neutral clip is also in line with socialization theory as introduced in the theoretical framework (e.g.
Oetting & Donnermeyer, 1998). Their higher electoral support when being presented with the full blown moral panic is furthermore in line with risk perception theory (Stoutenborough et al., 2015).
39 This study also finds that, even though a moral panic is institutionalized and multiple generations internalize the associated anxiety, a change in perception towards the subject of the moral panic is still possible – even though it may take decades. Respondents born after 1996 show the highest electoral support for the politician in the neutral clip out of all three age groups. In order to say if process this is generalizable to the broader moral panic theory or solely true in the case of classic psychedelics, more research in moral panics’ institutional legacies is necessary.
Further research should explore how this relates to moral panics which do not leave an institutional legacy. How do they remain in collective memory and influence peoples’ perception of the subject (or don’t they at all?), and how to they compare to the findings of this study?
Furthermore, the effect that the triggering of respondents’ moral panic had in this study was not in line with research on fear appeals in political campaigning for the legacy and renaissance group. Research by Brader (2005) and Bower (1981) have shown that emotional, and then particularly fear, appeals have great power of persuasion, and result in higher electoral support for the politician in question. This study finds the opposite effect; findings are more in line with theories surrounding the “backlash effect” in negative campaigning (Galasso et al., 2021).
Additionally, the elite engineered model as discussed in the theoretical framework claims that politicians can use moral panics for their own political, material or financial gain (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p.54−55). The findings of this study actually imply that the opposite might be true for the case of classic psychedelics. Overall, respondents who were presented with the moral panic conditions (ranging from 1−4) all indicated their electoral support to be lower than respondents who were shown the neutral campaign clip. This indicates that the controversial topic itself matters and a backlash effect can be created fairly easily: figure 4 and 5 show that even the mildest condition of moral panic – concern – had a negative effect almost as strongly as disproportionality. In line with research conducted by Loftus (1979) and Brader (2005); the negative effect of traditional moral panic rhetoric was stronger among respondents with LECP, indicating that indeed peoples’
own experiences lead them to reject misinformation about the experience in question. The fact
40 that the negative effect of the manipulation was less strong for respondents without LECP, indicates that they may be less capable of identifying the misinformation surrounding the effects and dangers of psychedelics that was the basis of the manipulations. This can have far reaching effects if the topic of psychedelics does indeed become a politicized and partisan topic in politics.
These findings, in turn, inspire new questions. While it is clear that younger generations have a strong negative response to the moral panic rhetoric, the question arises how this fits in the moral panic literature. Is this because public opinion changed towards psychedelics due to the simple passage of time? Or is it possible that the moral panic, which originally limited itself to recreational use, does not have the same effect when applied to medicinal use? The table in appendix 6 shows that the entire sample generally indicated their opinion to be more positive towards medical use of psychedelics than recreational use. To find an answer, this study should be replicated and applied to the legalization of psychedelics for recreational use (instead of medicinal), or completely different topics where the public opinion developed differently over time. Then, the results should be compared and it will become clearer if these findings are bound to the chosen case and the distinction between recreational use and medicinal use of psychedelics, or if they are generalizable to moral panic theory.
An important sidenote should be included with these findings. The two graphs introduced in the results section (figure 4 and 5) suggest a non-linear relationship. This is especially true for the moderating effect of respondents age in the moral panic age group, which appears to be a U-shaped relationship instead of a linear one. While the regression results still allow for a general insight in the relationship (overall: negative), the graphs challenge the theorization of the concept of moral panic as a hierarchical scale and the findings of the (failed) manipulation support this challenge. This inspires the question: can the concept of moral panic be seen as a hierarchical scale?
While Goode and Ben-Yehuda suggest so in their theoretical introduction of the criteria of moral
41 panic35, they also say that they are “a matter of degree; they come in different sizes” (Goode &
Ben-Yehuda, 2009, p.39). The linear models presented in this study give us valuable insights into the construction of the theoretical concept, but also indicate a clear direction for further research:
using a non-linear model (e.g. a quadratic regression36) which can model a curved relationship may provide an additional and interesting understanding of the theoretical construct and can add to the scholarship of moral panic theory by strengthening the construct validity of this study.
Limitations
This study is an initial exploration of the moral panic’s theoretical subfields political campaigning, institutional legacy and moral panic’s lasting effect in our collective memory. The findings discussed in the analyses and results section of this study are bound to some limitations.
Firstly, this study is an initial attempt at operationalizing the theoretical concept of moral panic. Of course, this means that the internal validity of this study is threatened by the fact that there is no existing scale or operationalization for the independent variable ‘moral panic’. The lack of previous operationalizations of the concept means that one cannot know for sure that the manipulation creates the desired effect. To counter this, the manipulation conditions were based on the literature by Goode and Ben-Yehuda (2009) as much as possible. However, the failed manipulation check of this study shows that the difference among conditions was not obvious enough to be perceived by respondents and even reflect a potential non-linear relationship. This is a useful finding, which should inspire other researchers to be more explicit in the difference between concern, hostility, claim to general consensus and disproportionality, which characterize a widespread moral panic.
Improving the strength of the manipulation will also allow for a deeper probing into the operationalization of the concept of moral panic: can it be seen as consisting of a hierarchy?
35 Goode and Ben-Yehuda do indicate a hierarchical scale not only by their explanation of criteria, but also through their introduction: they introduce their criteria in a causal fashion by using “first, there must be a heightened level of concern […]” (2009, p. 37, emphasis in original quote), “second, there must be an increased level of hostility […]” (p. 38, emphasis in original quote), and so on (p. 37-43).
36 Non-linear modeling is outside the scope of this research.
42 Simultaneously, there is also the factor of respondents’ interpretation of the manipulation check questions. Respondents seemed unclear about the interpretation of the questions37, which could have influenced the lack of significant distinctions made between conditions. Pretesting the manipulation check questions in further research can help decide if the lack of significant results stems from poorly formulated questions, too subtle manipulations, or the fact that moral panics cannot be interpreted as being hierarchical in their intensity. This study has added to the scholarship by laying some groundwork for further quantitative moral panic research.
Furthermore, responses to the campaign ads were generally quite negative. Especially among the psychedelic community38; multiple comments indicated a broad anxiety of the politicization of psychedelics, or as one respondent formulated it: “Please oh please do not turn psychedelic therapy into a political party parlor trick. […] I will be incredibly disappointed in the community if this gets hijacked to be used as a political governmental weapon”. Some respondents outside the psychedelic community also reacted negatively to the clips. It is entirely possible that the tone of the ad, the characteristics of the actor or his voice, or the chosen video footage influenced respondents’ opinion of the politician negatively, leading to a lower indication of electoral support.
The sample also encountered some limitations. The topic of this survey impacts the result in the sense that people who are very or extremely anti-psychedelics will be less likely to have wanted to fill in this survey, resulting in a group of respondent with a baseline of being open towards thinking about and engaging with research that focuses on psychedelics39. Sampling aimed
37One respondent said: “I can't say if information is concerning or not when the information itself is totally untrue.
Is the question whether I would be concerned if the statements were true? Is the question whether I am concerned because the ad is full of lies? "I'm not concerned because this information is false" is very different than saying "I wouldn't be concerned even if all this stuff were true", and those are both different from "I am concerned because this politician is spreading lies about psychedelics," but the survey doesn't give any way of differentiating what is concerning or why.”
38 One responded said: “I rated the video poorly because it felt like political advertising pretending to be legitimate research”. Another said: “You can’t get addicted to psychedelics, they are anti-addictive. And this is the same PR flash drama that you are trying to start up again. […] Robert sucks.”
39 On a scale of 1-7, respondents without LECP indicated their psychedelic attitude to be generally between somewhat negative (3) and neutral (4), while respondents with LECP indicated their psychedelic attitude to be between positive
43 for a larger number of respondents in the Moral Panic age category (n=80). However, respondents born before 1961 were hard to reach and experienced difficulty working with Qualtrics. Including elderly respondents in an experiment with a digital manipulation proved very difficult. Compared to the other age groups, which were at least six times larger, the small sample size negatively impacts the results, particularly because this age group was the reference category for the age moderation analyses. In general, the population validity of this study is impacted. Quasi-experimental factors, while having a higher ecological validity, are still susceptible to confounding variables. By including ideology as a covariate in the regression analysis, it was attempted to counterbalance this limitation.
In general, however, these limitations should be kept in mind when interpreting the findings of this study.
With this study being the first to attempt to operationalize the theoretical concept of moral panic, this study should be seen as an initial exploration of an understudied part of moral panic theory: long-lasting political effects. This study has several limitations, which should be taken into account when doing further research into the topic of moral panic revivals in politics, as well as the impact of moral panics’ institutional legacies. The case of psychedelics lends itself to much more further research, but these theoretical topics should also be studied using other cases as to yield a more general understanding of these processes not bound to the case of the classic psychedelics. So, to panic or not to panic? Should the case of the classic psychedelics become repoliticized, politicians would do well by doing their research, understanding the changing public opinion on the topic and not revert back to traditional moral panic rhetoric if they do not want to face the backlash effect. The relationship between psychedelics, society and politics is changing; so should politician’s communicative approach.
(6) and very positive (7) (see appendix 6). For this study, it would have been useful if the general score for respondents without LECP was mirrored to respondents with LECP’s scores (i.e. between very negative (1) and negative (2)).
44