Source code

{"built":"2026-10-22","groups":[{"id":"G1","name":"Combat and impact verbs used for criticism or debate","status":"indirect","note":"No published study tests these exact headline verbs. Loftus & Palmer (1974) is the closest experiment: a more violent verb for the same event raised judged severity and created false memories. Ecker et al. (2014) shows headline wording that overstates the body distorts what readers remember.","terms":["slams","slammed","blasts","blasted","rips","ripped","torches","torched","unloads","lashes out","lashed out","smacks","smacked","hammers","hammered","destroys","destroyed","obliterates","obliterated","eviscerates","eviscerated","demolishes","demolished","shreds","shredded"],"studies":["F5-01","F13-05"],"finding":"Loftus and Palmer (1974) found that a more violent verb for the same car crash (\"smashed\" vs \"hit\") raised speed estimates and false memories of broken glass. Ecker et al. (2014) found that a headline that misstated the article left readers with less accurate memory of its facts.","applies":"Hypothesis: a combat verb such as \"slams\" for a verbal criticism may lead readers to judge the exchange as more severe or hostile than the facts support.","limit":"Neither study tested combat verbs used for criticism or debate, and the Loftus and Palmer effect has mixed direct replications.","strength":"indirect"},{"id":"G2","name":"Anger and outrage words","status":"supported at category level","note":"Moral-emotional and outrage words predict sharing (about 12% per word in the 2025 meta-analysis) and anger predicts emailing (+34% per standard deviation). Robertson et al. (2023) found anger words did not raise clicks, so the backing is for spread and arousal, not clicks. Scathing, blistering and searing are not in the tested dictionaries; they are backed only as intensity adjectives (Recasens et al. 2013, subjective intensifiers).","terms":["fury","furious","outrage","outraged","rage","raging","erupts","erupted","firestorm","frenzy","backlash","fierce","fiercely","scathing","blistering","searing"],"studies":["F1-03","F1-05","F4-01"],"finding":"Studies of social media posts and news articles found that moral-emotional words and anger were associated with more sharing (about 12% more shares per moral-emotional word; +34% odds of being emailed per standard deviation of anger), and that likes and shares reinforced users' outrage posts.","applies":"Hypothesis: anger and outrage words in a news report may raise readers' arousal and push the story to spread for its heat rather than its facts.","limit":"These studies measured sharing and posting, not how readers judge a news report, and most of these exact words were not tested; anger words did not raise headline clicks in Robertson et al. (2023).","strength":"category"},{"id":"G3","name":"Catastrophe and disorder words","status":"supported at category level","note":"Negative words raise headline clicks (about 2.3% per word) and negative news raises physiological arousal. Disorder labels in protest coverage shift judgments of protesters (McLeod & Detenber 1999).","terms":["chaos","chaotic","nightmare","catastrophe","catastrophic","devastating","meltdown","implodes","imploded","panic","out of control","brutal","lawless","lawlessness"],"studies":["F3-01","F3-02","F9-04","F14-02"],"finding":"Negative words in news headlines raised clicks by about 2.3% per word in a large field test, negative news raised physiological arousal on average, fear-arousing messages shifted attitudes (average d = 0.29), and status-quo protest coverage made viewers more critical of protesters.","applies":"Hypothesis: catastrophe and disorder words such as \"chaos\" may make readers see an event as more threatening or a group as more disorderly than the facts support.","limit":"The studies tested negative words, fear messages and whole-story framing, not these specific terms, and clicks and arousal are not the same as misjudging the facts.","strength":"category"},{"id":"G4","name":"War and conflict metaphors","status":"supported, mixed replication","note":"Metaphor frames change policy reasoning in some studies (crime as beast vs virus) but a replication failed; war metaphors lowered some health-prevention intentions. Backing is for the metaphor family, not for each word.","terms":["war on","all-out war","crusade","onslaught","bombshell","explosive"],"studies":["F6-01","F6-02"],"finding":"Describing crime as a beast rather than a virus shifted readers toward enforcement in one set of studies, though a later replication found no effect; describing cancer as an enemy to fight lowered some prevention intentions.","applies":"Hypothesis: war metaphors in news may push readers toward combative, us-versus-them reasoning about a policy issue.","limit":"The research tested extended metaphors about crime and illness, not single words such as \"bombshell\" in political news, and the core finding has a failed replication.","strength":"category"},{"id":"G5","name":"Mockery and humiliation","status":"indirect","note":"Out-group posts draw mocking and angry reactions and are shared more (each out-group term +67% odds). No study tests these verbs in news headlines.","terms":["mocks","mocked","dunks","dunked","humiliating","humiliation","humiliates"],"studies":["F2-01","F1-03"],"finding":"In social media posts from news outlets and members of Congress, words referring to the opposing party raised sharing (each out-group term raised the odds by 67%) and drew angry and mocking reactions.","applies":"Hypothesis: describing a figure as mocking or humiliating an opponent may frame news as a contest between sides and invite the same out-group animosity.","limit":"The study measured mocking reactions from users, not the effect of a reporter using mockery verbs, and it measured sharing rather than reader judgment.","strength":"indirect"},{"id":"G6","name":"Delegitimizing labels and accusations in reporter voice","status":"no direct reader-effect backing","note":"These words assert or presuppose a contested claim. The evidence supports flagging them as presupposition (Loftus 1975) and as partisan vocabulary (Gentzkow & Shapiro 2010), not as emotional heat.","terms":["witch hunt","sham","hoax","cover-up","coverup","rigged","weaponized","weaponization","tyranny","tyrannical"],"studies":["F5-02","F10-04","F12-01"],"finding":"Loftus (1975) found that wording that presupposed an object led more people to report seeing it; Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010) found that partisan phrases track a newspaper's slant; Recasens et al. (2013) found that Wikipedia editors remove one-sided and truth-presupposing words.","applies":"Hypothesis: a label such as \"witch hunt\" or \"hoax\" in reporter voice may lead readers to accept a contested claim as settled.","limit":"None of these studies tested whether these labels in news change readers' beliefs; they show presupposition effects in memory, measure slant, and describe editing practice.","strength":"indirect","movedTo":"Since method 3.0.0 these words are scored under word choice as contentious labels, on the basis of the newsroom rule, not reader research."},{"id":"G7","name":"Mental-illness insults","status":"no direct published backing","note":"No experiment located that tests these words in news. The closest evidence is the dehumanization research (Utych 2018), which tested animal and pest imagery. These words are on the list as a newsroom style rule.","terms":["insanity","lunacy","lunatic","unhinged","deranged"],"studies":["F9-01"],"finding":"Utych (2018) found that dehumanizing descriptions of immigrants (animal and pest imagery) made readers' attitudes more negative, with anger and disgust carrying the effect.","applies":"Hypothesis: mental-illness insults such as \"unhinged\" may, like dehumanizing labels, lower readers' regard for the person described.","limit":"No study located tested mental-illness insults in news; the link to dehumanizing imagery is by analogy only.","strength":"indirect","movedTo":"Since method 3.0.0 these words are part of the insults group (G12) and are experimental: shown, not scored."},{"id":"G8","name":"Shock and surprise boosters","status":"indirect","note":"Clickbait and curiosity-gap headlines lower credibility ratings (Molyneux & Coddington 2020); high-arousal surprise and awe raise sharing (Berger & Milkman 2012). No study isolates these adjectives.","terms":["stunning","shocking","jaw-dropping","staggering","whopping","epic","dramatic","dramatically"],"studies":["F13-04","F4-01"],"finding":"Molyneux and Coddington (2020) found that clickbait headlines lowered readers' ratings of a story's credibility and quality; Berger and Milkman (2012) found that articles evoking high-arousal emotions such as awe were more likely to be emailed.","applies":"Hypothesis: shock adjectives such as \"stunning\" may make a report read as clickbait and lower its credibility, while raising arousal.","limit":"Neither study isolated these adjectives; clickbait was tested as a whole headline style and arousal was measured at the article level.","strength":"indirect"},{"id":"G9","name":"Degree and size intensifiers","status":"weak","note":"Intensifiers have mixed effects on perceived authority (Hosman 1989) and are classed as framing bias in Wikipedia neutrality edits (Recasens et al. 2013). VADER raises a sentiment score when a booster word precedes it.","terms":["very","extremely","totally","truly","deeply","hugely","massive","massively","huge","enormous","sweeping"],"studies":["F11-02","F12-01"],"finding":"Hosman (1989) found that hedges and hesitations lowered a speaker's perceived authority, while intensifiers had mixed effects depending on the other speech features; Recasens et al. (2013) found that Wikipedia editors remove such words as framing bias.","applies":"Hypothesis: degree intensifiers such as \"massive\" may inflate how large or important readers judge a development to be.","limit":"Hosman tested spoken testimony and judgments of the speaker, not news readers' judgments of facts, and the intensifier results were mixed.","strength":"category"},{"id":"G10","name":"Rebuke and setback words","status":"no direct published backing","note":"No study located. These words are on the list as a newsroom style rule.","terms":["rebuke","rebuked","rebukes","major blow","blow to","scrambles","scrambling"],"studies":[],"finding":"No published study was located that tests rebuke or setback words.","applies":"Hypothesis: words such as \"rebuke\" or \"major blow\" may frame routine events as defeats and make a story read as a contest.","limit":"No research backs this group; it is on the list as a newsroom style rule.","strength":"none"},{"id":"G11","name":"Softening words (euphemism and agent removal)","status":"directly supported for several terms","note":"Directly tested: \"enhanced interrogation\" and \"neutralizing\" (Walker et al. 2021), \"officer-involved\" (Moreno-Medina et al. 2025). Agent-removing forms (\"mistakes were made\", \"misspoke\") are backed by Fausey & Boroditsky (2010). The other euphemisms are backed by the general euphemism finding and attribute framing. \"Raised eyebrows\", \"sparked debate\" and \"pushback\" are vague-attribution phrases with no reader-effect study; Recasens et al. (2013) supports them only as neutrality-edit targets. \"Gaffe\" has no backing. \"Friendly fire\" is standard military terminology and may produce false positives.","terms":["officer-involved","collateral damage","misspoke","enhanced interrogation","kinetic action","mistakes were made","misstep","gaffe","downsizing","right-sizing","revenue enhancement","neutralized","friendly fire","raised eyebrows","sparked debate","pushback","misspeaks","controversial remarks","missteps","gaffes","raises eyebrows","sparks debate"],"studies":["F10-05","F7-02","F7-01","F8-03","F12-01"],"finding":"Walker et al. (2021) found that actions described with euphemisms such as \"enhanced interrogation\" were judged more acceptable without costing the speaker credibility, and Moreno-Medina et al. (2025) found that \"officer-involved\" and passive wording in police-killing stories lowered readers' assignment of responsibility; Fausey and Boroditsky (2010) found that agent-free descriptions lowered blame.","applies":"Hypothesis: softening words and agent-removing phrases in news may lead readers to judge actions as less serious and assign less responsibility.","limit":"Only a few terms were tested directly; others such as \"gaffe\", \"pushback\" and \"sparked debate\" have no reader-effect study, and the agent-removal effect replicated in English with mixed results in Croatian.","strength":"direct"},{"id":"G12","name":"Insults and name-calling","status":"supported at category level","note":"Name-calling and insults are the forms of incivility readers rate as most uncivil (Muddiman 2017). Experiments find that political incivility lowers trust by a small amount (meta-analysis g = -0.19), raises anger, and can polarize views; uncivil conflict news lowered news source credibility in one study, while an uncivil blog made an adjacent news story look more credible in another. No study tests a reporter insulting people in their own voice.","terms":["moron","morons","idiot","idiots","liar","liars","loser","losers","clown","clowns","buffoon","buffoons","crook","crooks","traitor","traitors","scum","insanity","lunacy","lunatic","lunatics","unhinged","deranged"],"studies":["F15-01","F15-02","F15-03","F15-04","F15-05","F15-06","F15-07","F15-08","F15-09","F15-10","F15-11"],"finding":"Experiments found that incivility in political messages, including name-calling such as \"you're an idiot\" in reader comments, lowered political trust (meta-analysis g = -0.19, a small effect), polarized risk views by prior attitudes, raised anger, and lowered engagement and news source credibility in some studies; one study found an uncivil blog made an adjacent news story look more credible.","applies":"Hypothesis: a reporter's own insults may lower readers' trust in the people described and in the outlet, and may polarize readers' views along existing lines.","limit":"The studies tested incivility by politicians, commenters, bloggers and conflict in news stories, not a reporter insulting people in their own voice, and none tested these single words in isolation.","strength":"category"}],"studies":{"F1-03":{"pattern":"Moral-emotional words (replication and meta-analysis)","effect":"Each additional moral-emotional word was associated with more sharing, with a smaller effect than first reported.","effectSize":"Incidence rate ratio 1.12 (95% confidence interval 1.06–1.19): about 12% more shares per moral-emotional word.","citation":"Brady, W. J., Rathje, S., Globig, L., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2025). Estimating the effect size of moral contagion in online networks: A pre-registered replication and meta-analysis. PNAS Nexus.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf327","replication":"This is the replication. Listed as a successful replication of the original study in the FORRT FLoRA Replication Atlas.","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F1-05":{"pattern":"Outrage expression is reinforced by likes and shares","effect":"Positive social feedback for outrage made users more likely to express outrage later; users also matched the outrage norms of their networks.","effectSize":"","citation":"Brady, W. J., McLoughlin, K., Doan, T. N., & Crockett, M. J. (2021). How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks. Science Advances, eabe5641.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abe5641","replication":"Preregistered; no independent replication found in this review.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F2-01":{"pattern":"Words referring to the political out-group","effect":"Posts about the opposing party were shared about twice as often as posts about one's own party; out-group references drew angry and mocking reactions.","effectSize":"Each out-group term raised the odds of sharing by 67%. Out-group language had about 4.8 times the effect of negative-affect words and 6.7 times the effect of moral-emotional words.","citation":"Rathje, S., Van Bavel, J. J., & van der Linden, S. (2021). Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media. PNAS, e2024292118.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024292118","replication":"Large dataset across two platforms and two sources (media, Congress). Observational, so causation is not established.","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F3-01":{"pattern":"Negative words in headlines","effect":"Headlines with more negative words were clicked more; positive words lowered clicks. Sad words raised clicks; joy and fear words lowered them; anger words had no significant effect.","effectSize":"Each negative word raised click-through rate by about 2.3% (relative) for an average-length headline; each positive word lowered it by about 1.0%.","citation":"Robertson, C. E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K., Pärnamets, P., Van Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour, 7, 812–822.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4","replication":"Registered Report format (analysis plan reviewed before full data). Effects declined across 2013–2015.","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F3-02":{"pattern":"Negative news stories and body arousal","effect":"Negative stories produced larger skin-conductance and heart-rate responses than positive stories, across countries; individuals varied widely and many showed no change.","effectSize":"Reported as average differences in normalized skin conductance and heart rate variability; large individual variation.","citation":"Soroka, S., Fournier, P., & Nir, L. (2019). Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. PNAS, 116(38), 18888–18892.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908369116","replication":"Partly replicated: Dubèl et al. (2024), Media and Communication, found suggestive support that negative news raises skin conductance (https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.7807).","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F4-01":{"pattern":"High-arousal emotion (anger, awe, anxiety) in articles","effect":"Articles evoking high-arousal emotions (awe, anger, anxiety) were more likely to be emailed; sadness (low arousal) made sharing less likely. Lab studies showed arousal explained the effect.","effectSize":"One standard deviation more anger: +34% odds of making the most-emailed list; awe: +30%; sadness: about -16%.","citation":"Berger, J., & Milkman, K. L. (2012). What makes online content viral? Journal of Marketing Research.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.10.0353","replication":"Widely cited; no direct replication located in this review. Robertson et al. (2023) found anger words in headlines did not raise clicks, so the anger effect may apply to sharing more than clicking.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F5-01":{"pattern":"Violent verb for the same event","effect":"A more violent verb raised estimates of speed and led people a week later to falsely remember broken glass.","effectSize":"Mean speed estimates: smashed 40.8 mph, collided 39.3, bumped 38.1, hit 34.0, contacted 31.8. False memory of broken glass: smashed 32%, hit 14%, control 12%.","citation":"Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585–589.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3","replication":"Mixed for direct replications. Goldschmied et al. (2017) failed in a sport-commentary version (https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1237980). The broader misinformation effect (later wording changes memory) is among the most replicated findings in memory research. Small samples in the original.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F5-02":{"pattern":"Presupposition in a question or clause","effect":"Wording that assumed an object existed led more people to remember seeing it a week later. Asking about \"the\" item instead of \"a\" item raised reports of seeing it.","effectSize":"17.3% reported seeing a nonexistent barn vs 2.7% of controls.","citation":"Loftus, E. F. (1975). Leading questions and the eyewitness report. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 560–572.","url":"https://app.nova.edu/toolbox/instructionalproducts/edd8124/articles/1975-Loftus.pdf","replication":"Part of the misinformation-effect literature, widely replicated in concept. DOI not confirmed in this review (author PDF linked).","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F6-01":{"pattern":"Crime described as a beast vs a virus","effect":"Readers given the beast metaphor favored enforcement and punishment more; readers given the virus metaphor favored reform and prevention more.","effectSize":"71% favored more enforcement after the beast frame vs 54% after the virus frame in one study.","citation":"Thibodeau, P. H., & Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLoS ONE, 6(2), e16782.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016782","replication":"Mixed. Steen, Reijnierse & Burgers (2014, PLoS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0113536) found no metaphor framing effect. Christmann & Göhring (2016, Scientific Data, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.98) replicated the main effect in German.","evidenceStrength":"mixed"},"F6-02":{"pattern":"War and enemy metaphors","effect":"Describing cancer as an enemy to fight lowered intentions to adopt self-limiting prevention behaviors and did not raise intentions for screening or treatment.","effectSize":"","citation":"Hauser, D. J., & Schwarz, N. (2015). The war on prevention: Bellicose cancer metaphors hurt (some) prevention intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(1), 66–77.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167214557006","replication":"No direct replication located.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F7-01":{"pattern":"Agentive vs non-agentive description","effect":"Readers assigned more blame and higher financial penalties when the same accident was described with a person as the doer.","effectSize":"","citation":"Fausey, C. M., & Boroditsky, L. (2010). Subtle linguistic cues influence perceived blame and financial liability. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(5), 644–650.","url":"https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.5.644","replication":"Mixed. Tonković et al. (2022), Legal and Criminological Psychology, preregistered direct replication, reproduced the effect in English with mixed results in Croatian (https://doi.org/10.1111/lcrp.12219).","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F7-02":{"pattern":"Obscuring language in police-killing coverage","effect":"News coverage of police killings often used passive and \"officer-involved\" phrasing. In an experiment, readers who saw this obfuscating language were less likely to hold the officer morally responsible or to support penalties, especially when the victim was unarmed.","effectSize":"","citation":"Moreno-Medina, J., Ouss, A., Bayer, P., & Ba, B. A. (2025). Officer-involved: The media language of police killings. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(2), 1525–1580.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaf004","replication":"Single paper; peer reviewed in a top journal. DOI taken from the RePEc handle.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F8-03":{"pattern":"Attribute framing of a single figure","effect":"The positively labeled product was rated better; the effect was smaller after tasting.","effectSize":"","citation":"Levin, I. P., & Gaeth, G. J. (1988). How consumers are affected by the framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(3), 374–378.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1086/209174","replication":"Attribute framing is well replicated in later work.","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F9-01":{"pattern":"Dehumanizing language about immigrants","effect":"Dehumanizing descriptions made attitudes toward immigrants more negative, with anger and disgust carrying the effect.","effectSize":"","citation":"Utych, S. M. (2018). How dehumanization influences attitudes toward immigrants. Political Research Quarterly, 71(2), 440–452.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917744897","replication":"Consistent with the broader dehumanization literature; no direct replication located.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F9-04":{"pattern":"Fear appeals","effect":"Fear-arousing messages changed attitudes, intentions and behavior; effects were larger when the message also said what to do about the threat.","effectSize":"Average d = 0.29 (a small-to-moderate effect).","citation":"Tannenbaum, M. B., Hepler, J., Zimmerman, R. S., Saul, L., Jacobs, S., Wilson, K., & Albarracín, D. (2015). Appealing to fear: A meta-analysis of fear appeal effectiveness and theories. Psychological Bulletin, 141(6), 1178–1204.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039729","replication":"Meta-analysis; consistent with earlier meta-analyses.","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F10-04":{"pattern":"Partisan phrase choice (\"death tax\" vs \"estate tax\")","effect":"Members of Congress from each party use distinct phrases for the same policy; newspapers' phrase choices track their readers' politics. This measures slant; it does not measure emotional effect on readers.","effectSize":"2005: Republicans said \"death tax\" 365 times and \"estate tax\" 46 times; Democrats 35 and 195.","citation":"Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J. M. (2010). What drives media slant? Evidence from U.S. daily newspapers. Econometrica, 78(1), 35–71.","url":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA7195","replication":"Method widely reused.","evidenceStrength":"strong"},"F10-05":{"pattern":"Euphemism vs plain or harsh term","effect":"Actions described with euphemisms were judged more acceptable, and speakers who used them were seen as honest, so euphemism shifts judgment without costing credibility. Knowing the facts reduced the effect.","effectSize":"","citation":"Walker, A. C., Turpin, M. H., Meyers, E. A., Stolz, J. A., Fugelsang, J. A., & Koehler, D. J. (2021). Controlling the narrative: Euphemistic language affects judgments of actions while avoiding perceptions of dishonesty. Cognition, 104633.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104633","replication":"Four internal studies; no external replication located.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F11-02":{"pattern":"Hedges, hesitations and intensifiers","effect":"Hedges and hesitations lowered perceived authoritativeness; intensifiers interacted in complex ways with the other markers.","effectSize":"","citation":"Hosman, L. A. (1989). The evaluative consequences of hedges, hesitations, and intensifiers: Powerful and powerless speech styles. Human Communication Research, 15(3), 383–406.","url":"https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/16291","replication":"Part of a larger \"powerless language\" literature with mixed results for intensifiers.","evidenceStrength":"mixed"},"F12-01":{"pattern":"Epistemological bias: factive verbs, assertives, one-sided terms","effect":"Wikipedia editors removed words that presuppose truth (revealed, exposed), assert certainty (claimed, pointed out), or carry one-sided framing, in order to restore a neutral point of view. Readers and a model could locate the biased word about a third of the time on the first guess.","effectSize":"Top-1 accuracy at finding the biased word: humans 37.4%, model 34.4%.","citation":"Recasens, M., Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, C., & Jurafsky, D. (2013). Linguistic models for analyzing and detecting biased language. Proceedings of ACL 2013, 1650–1659.","url":"https://aclanthology.org/P13-1162/","replication":"Widely reused in media-bias detection work.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F13-04":{"pattern":"Clickbait headlines and credibility","effect":"Clickbait headlines lowered readers' ratings of the story's credibility and quality.","effectSize":"","citation":"Molyneux, L., & Coddington, M. (2020). Aggregation, clickbait and their effect on perceptions of journalistic credibility and quality. Journalism Practice, 14(4), 429–446.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1628658","replication":"No direct replication located.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F13-05":{"pattern":"Headline that misstates the body","effect":"Readers given a misleading headline remembered the article's facts less accurately and judged people in the story differently, even after reading the full text.","effectSize":"Fact-quiz scores 46% with a misleading headline vs 58% with a matching headline (factual articles).","citation":"Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Chang, E. P., & Pillai, R. (2014). The effects of subtle misinformation in news headlines. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20, 323–335.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000028","replication":"Small samples; consistent with later headline-correction research.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F14-02":{"pattern":"Status-quo framing of protest","effect":"Viewers of more status-quo-supporting coverage were more critical of protesters, more favorable to police, less supportive of protesters' rights, and judged the protest less effective and less newsworthy.","effectSize":"","citation":"McLeod, D. M., & Detenber, B. H. (1999). Framing effects of television news coverage of social protest. Journal of Communication, 49(3), 3–23.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02802.x","replication":"Part of the \"protest paradigm\" literature.","evidenceStrength":"moderate"},"F15-01":{"pattern":"Uncivil vs civil televised political debate","effect":"In three lab experiments, the same political disagreement shown in an uncivil manner lowered viewers' trust in politicians and the political system; disagreement shown civilly did not. Uncivil exchanges also raised viewer interest.","effectSize":"","citation":"Mutz, D. C., & Reeves, B. (2005). The new videomalaise: Effects of televised incivility on political trust. American Political Science Review, 99(1), 1–15.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055405051452","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Lab samples; the trust effect is consistent with the 2022 meta-analysis (Van't Riet & Van Stekelenburg), which found the effect stronger for video than for other media."},"F15-02":{"pattern":"Name-calling in reader comments under a news blog post (\"you're an idiot\")","effect":"Uncivil comments had no direct effect on risk perceptions of nanotechnology, but they polarized readers: those with low support saw more risk and those with high support saw less.","effectSize":"Interaction coefficients beta = .09 (support x incivility) and beta = -.07 (religiosity x incivility); the interaction block added 1.0% of explained variance. N = 1,183 in the nanotechnology condition of a national U.S. sample.","citation":"Anderson, A. A., Brossard, D., Scheufele, D. A., Xenos, M. A., & Ladwig, P. (2014). The \"nasty effect:\" Online incivility and risk perceptions of emerging technologies. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(3), 373–387.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12009","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"No direct replication located in this review. The incivility was in fictional reader comments, not the article, and the effects were small interactions rather than a main effect."},"F15-03":{"pattern":"Uncivil vs civil mediated political conflict in three European countries","effect":"Uncivil conflict lowered intention to participate politically and support for the policies discussed, with similar effects in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Spain. It did not raise cynicism toward the EU. People with low tolerance for disagreement were most affected.","effectSize":"","citation":"Otto, L. P., Lecheler, S., & Schuck, A. R. T. (2020). Is context the key? The (non-)differential effects of mediated incivility in three European countries. Political Communication, 37(1), 88–107.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1663324","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Cross-national design replicates the effect across three countries within one study; no independent replication located."},"F15-04":{"pattern":"Uncivil political posts on an online message board","effect":"Uncivil posts from the other side made participants angry and averse and less satisfied with the discussion; uncivil posts from their own side made participants more uncivil in their own comments. Effects appeared mainly for emotional, histrionic incivility.","effectSize":"","citation":"Gervais, B. T. (2015). Incivility online: Affective and behavioral reactions to uncivil political posts in a web-based experiment. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 12(2), 167–185.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2014.997416","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Single experiment; no direct replication located."},"F15-05":{"pattern":"Political incivility (meta-analysis of experiments)","effect":"Across 35 experiments, incivility lowered political trust by a small amount and had almost no effect on political participation. The trust effect was stronger for video and in U.S. studies.","effectSize":"Trust: Hedges' g = -0.19 (95% CI -0.30 to -0.09). Participation: g = -0.02 (95% CI -0.11 to 0.08).","citation":"Van't Riet, J., & Van Stekelenburg, A. (2022). The effects of political incivility on political trust and political participation: A meta-analysis of experimental research. Human Communication Research, 48(2), 203–229.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqab022","evidenceStrength":"strong","replication":"This is the meta-analysis. The authors report some sign of publication bias, so the true trust effect may be smaller."},"F15-06":{"pattern":"Name-calling and insults as perceived incivility","effect":"Readers rated name-calling, insults and rude language as more uncivil than failures of deliberation such as refusing to compromise; these grouped together as personal-level incivility. Politicians from the reader's own party were rated as more civil.","effectSize":"","citation":"Muddiman, A. (2017). Personal and public levels of political incivility. International Journal of Communication, 11, 3182–3202.","url":"https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6137","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Two studies (N = 258 and N = 1,024) found the same structure. Measures what readers perceive as uncivil, not the effect on their attitudes."},"F15-07":{"pattern":"Civil vs uncivil online political news content","effect":"Civil news drew more engagement than news with the most incivility; articles with several types of incivility, or that showed the out-group party acting uncivilly, discouraged engagement.","effectSize":"","citation":"Muddiman, A., Pond-Cobb, J., & Matson, J. E. (2020). Negativity bias or backlash: Interaction with civil and uncivil online political news content. Communication Research, 47(6), 815–837.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650216685625","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Two experiments within the paper; no independent replication located."},"F15-08":{"pattern":"Uncivil vs disagreeable conflict news","effect":"Uncivil conflict news raised perceived incivility, which raised engagement through surveillance emotions but also lowered engagement directly and by lowering the news source's credibility.","effectSize":"","citation":"Muddiman, A., & Scacco, J. M. (2024). The influence of conflict news on audience digital engagement. Journalism Studies, 25(3), 278–298.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2296028","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Single experiment; no independent replication located."},"F15-09":{"pattern":"News story placed inside an uncivil partisan blog post","effect":"A news story embedded in an uncivil, partisan blog post was rated as more credible, apparently by contrast with the rude blog around it.","effectSize":"","citation":"Thorson, K., Vraga, E., & Ekdale, B. (2010). Credibility in context: How uncivil online commentary affects news credibility. Mass Communication and Society, 13(3), 289–313.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15205430903225571","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Single experiment; no independent replication located. The incivility was in the surrounding blog, not the news story."},"F15-10":{"pattern":"Uncivil elite exchanges vs issue polarization","effect":"Uncivil exchanges between politicians lowered political trust and raised affective polarization (dislike of the other party) but did not polarize policy attitudes. Issue polarization polarized attitudes and raised affective polarization but did not lower trust.","effectSize":"","citation":"Skytte, R. (2021). Dimensions of elite partisan polarization: Disentangling the effects of incivility and issue polarization. British Journal of Political Science, 51(4), 1457–1475.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123419000760","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Separates incivility from disagreement, in line with Mutz and Reeves (2005); no direct replication located."},"F15-11":{"pattern":"Perceived incivility among politicians (panel survey)","effect":"In a Danish panel, citizens who perceived more incivility among politicians lost trust in politicians and satisfaction with democracy; the effects came from incivility, not from issue conflict.","effectSize":"","citation":"Bøggild, T., & Jensen, C. (2024). When politicians behave badly: Political, democratic, and social consequences of political incivility. American Journal of Political Science. Advance online publication.","url":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12897","evidenceStrength":"moderate","replication":"Panel survey of over 6,000 respondents with a natural experiment; observational, not a wording experiment."}}}