Johnson 2019

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Issues, involvement, and influence: Effects of selective exposure and sharing on

polarization and participation
Benjamin K. Johnson, Rachel L. Neo, Marieke E.M. Heijnen, Lotte Smits, Caitrina van
Veen
PII: S0747-5632(19)30367-X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.09.031
Reference: CHB 6155
To appear in: Computers in Human Behavior
Received Date: 3 June 2019

Revised Date: 27 September 2019
Accepted Date: 30 September 2019
Please cite this article as: Johnson B.K., Neo R.L., Heijnen M.E.M., Smits L. & van Veen C., Issues,
involvement, and influence: Effects of selective exposure and sharing on polarization and participation,
Computers in Human Behavior (2019), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.09.031.
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© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Running head: EXPOSURE AND SHARING EFFECTS 1
Issues, Involvement, and Influence: Effects of Selective Exposure and Sharing on
Polarization and Participation
Benjamin K. Johnsona*
Rachel L. Neob
Marieke E. M. Heijnenc
Lotte Smitsc
Caitrina van Veenc
a
University of Florida, Department of Advertising
1885 Stadium Road
Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
benjaminkjohnson@ufl.edu
b
University of Hawaii at Manoa, School of Communications
2550 Campus Road
Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
c
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Communication Science
De Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands
*Corresponding author.
Author Note: No competing interests exist.

EXPOSURE AND SHARING EFFECTS 1
Abstract
Although research has amply demonstrated that people exhibit confirmatory biases associated
with exposure and information sharing on social media, there is a lack of research attempting to
parse out the respective effects of selective exposure and sharing on political outcomes,
especially in non-U.S. contexts. In this experiment, we tested the extent of confirmation bias in
Dutch Facebook users’ selection and sharing of opinionated news about three political issues.
The relative contributions of selecting versus sharing pro-attitudinal (and counter-attitudinal)
messages were assessed for their influences on attitude polarization and political participation.
Value- and impression- involvement were considered as moderating factors. Findings indicate
that a confirmation bias is much more consistently observed in selective sharing than in selective
exposure. Second, pro-attitudinal selective sharing is a more robust predictor of political
outcomes than pro-attitudinal selective exposure. Third, the effects of selective sharing and
exposure on political outcomes depend more on value involvement than impression relevant
involvement. Finally, between-topic differences were evident for the extent of confirmation bias
and its effects on political outcomes.
Keywords: selective exposure, selective sharing, polarization, online news, online
participation, involvement, experiment

1. Introduction
The existence of a confirmation bias in the selection and sharing of news and information
is well-documented (Hart et al., 2009; Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015). Selective exposure, a
tendency of people to choose and spend more time reading attitude-consistent information, can
yield effects on outcomes such as attitude polarization, feelings toward outgroups, voting
intentions, and political participation intentions (Feezell, 2016; Garrett et al., 2014; Wojcieszak,
Bimber, Feldman, & Stroud, 2016). In addition to attitude-consistent selective exposure, people
may also engage in attitude-consistent selective sharing. The widespread adoption of social
network sites such as Facebook and Twitter have created new platforms for partisan sharing of
news and political messages (Beam, Hutchens, & Hmielowski, 2016; Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar,
2015; Weeks, Lane, Kim, Lee, & Kwak, 2017).
Despite increasing scholarly attention devoted to understanding how selective exposure
or selective sharing on social media influence political outcomes (e.g., Shin & Thorson, 2017;
Weeks et al., 2017), existing research on this topic still has several key limitations. First, most
studies have only examined either selective exposure or selective sharing as focal variables, but
not both. Some scholars have argued that selective sharing is a more overtly clarion reflection of
partisan leanings than selective exposure (Shin & Thorson, 2017) and that it involves greater
behavioral commitment (Lane et al., 2019). Our study thus tests the effects of (a) attitudinal
stance on selective exposure versus selective sharing and (b) how both selective exposure and
selective sharing on social media affect political outcomes among the same individuals. This
allows us to assess which of these two confirmation biases is a stronger predictor of political
outcomes.
Second, few studies on selective exposure or sharing have accounted for the moderating
role of involvement (Liao & Fu, 2013; Wheeless, 1974). Research has shown that involvement
levels affect partisan-based political behaviors (Perloff, 1989). However, not everyone exhibits
deep-seated levels of value involvement toward any given political issue or exhibits similar
levels of concern about others’ evaluations of their political preferences.
Third, most studies on selective exposure (Bakshy, Messing, & Adamic, 2015) or sharing
on social media (e.g., Weeks et al., 2017) have been conducted in the United States. The United
States has a unique two-party political system with an electorate that is heavily polarized along
party lines (Garrett et al., 2014). It is imperative to conduct more experimental research outside
of the U.S. in order to provide stronger evidence for these two aforementioned confirmation
biases, especially in democracies such as the Netherlands with parliamentary systems involving a
fragmented diversity of political parties that must typically work together in coalition to form a
functioning government (Pellikaan, de Lange, & van der Meer, 2018). In the Netherlands,
specifically, there have been well-designed tests of partisan selective exposure using panel data
(e.g., Bos, Kruikemeier, & de Vreese, 2016), a quasi-experimental design (Trilling, van
Klingeren, & Tsfati, 2017), and experiments testing the effects of frames on selective exposure
(Brenes Peralta, Wojcieszak, Lelkes, & de Vreese, 2017; Hameleers, Bos, & de Vreese, 2018).
However, there is little to no evidence to date on selective sharing in Dutch contexts, and more
research is needed on the process of—and potential for—polarization in multi-party systems
such as the Netherlands.
Fourth, most studies have examined selective exposure exclusively in the context of
highly polarized topics (e.g., Westerwick, Johnson, & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2017). In our
study, we use several topics which vary in their existing polarization and salience (cf. Y. M.
Kim, 2009).
To bridge these research gaps outlined above, this study reports the results of an
experiment in which compares the relative influence of selective exposure and sharing (to pro-
and counter-attitudinal political content on Facebook) on political participation and opinion
polarization. In particular, we investigate these processes in the contexts of three political topics
chosen for their varying relevance and salience for a Dutch sample: the relationship between
Ukraine and the EU; the entry of refugees into the Netherlands; and equal pay for men and
women. Moreover, we investigate two forms of attitudinal involvement—value-involvement and
impression-involvement—as moderators not only of selectivity, but also of selectivity’s effects
on polarization and participation.
2. Literature review
2.1. The effect of information stance on selective exposure
Numerous studies have shown that individuals’ attitudinal stances will guide the
composition and degree of their information exposure (Garrett, 2009a; Hart et al., 2009;
Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015). Notably, confirmation bias describes the tendency where people
will gravitate toward information that aligns with their existing views (Lord, Ross, & Lepper,
1979). The psychological processes underlying confirmation bias can be explained by the theory
of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), which posits that people strive to minimize
psychological discomfort arising from performing actions that are inconsistent with their values
and beliefs. One such action is that of counter-attitudinal political news consumption (Jeong, Zo,
Lee, & Ceran, 2019). Although people do not avoid counter-attitudinal political information
entirely (Garrett, Carnahan, & Lynch, 2013), they nonetheless spend less time reading counter-
attitudinal than pro-attitudinal news stories (e.g., Frey, 1986; Garrett, 2009a).
Some scholars have argued that the control afforded by online platforms facilitates the
selective consumption of pro-attitudinal political information (Garrett, 2009b). Likewise, the
sheer volume of content made available by digital platforms may heighten the ability, desire, or
necessity for user selectivity in news use (S. Lee, Lindsey, & Kim, 2017). Indeed, research has
consistently demonstrated robust support for confirmation bias in online contexts such as social
media (e.g., Westerwick et al., 2017).
The term selective exposure is often used to refer to an observed confirmation bias in
information exposure, where pro-attitudinal content is selected at a higher rate (Stroud, 2008) or
even exclusively, in some formulations. We take a broader definition of selective exposure,
following Knobloch-Westerwick (2015), such that it refers to any systematic pattern in media
use. This accounts for a broader set of motivations for media use (including accuracy, impression
management, novelty, entertainment, etc.) as well as the possibility that some individuals, under
certain situations, may exercise a selective preference for counter-attitudinal messages (e.g., if
that information provides more utility; Knobloch-Westerwick & Kleinman, 2012). However, our
starting point for this investigation is a general expectation that a confirmation bias will be
evident in exposure to political information presented in a social media context.
H1: People will spend more time reading pro-attitudinal than counter-attitudinal news
stories on social media.
2.2. The effect of selective exposure on political participation and opinion polarization
Next, we can expect pro- and counter-attitudinal political information consumption to
have effects on variables such as opinion polarization and political participation. Research has
demonstrated a robust positive link between pro-attitudinal news consumption and political
participation (Knobloch-Westerwick & Johnson, 2014; Stroud, 2010). And, the more people
attend to attitude-reinforcing political information, the more they will exhibit strong and even
extreme attitudes. Such confidence emboldens people to take political action, so that attitude-
affirming news on social media is likely to foster both online and offline political participation
(Beam, Hutchens, & Hmielowski, 2018; Feezell, 2016; Y. Kim & Chen, 2016).
Social media provide ease of access to content, coupled with the presence of social peers,
making it an important context for interacting with news and political information. As such,
social media appear to be especially consequential for political participation (Bode, Vraga,
Borah, & Shah, 2014; Boulianne, 2015). Furthermore, consuming attitude-affirming news
increases the salience of a person’s political identity, thereby causing a person to think and
behave in ways that signify their party affiliation (Stroud, 2010). For instance, selective exposure
causes people to develop more polarized opinions on controversial issues that align with their
party’s values (Y. Kim, 2015; Stroud, 2010; Westerwick, Johnson, & Knobloch-Westerwick,
2017). From this, we can expect that accessing pro-attitudinal news in a social media context will
increase participation and opinion polarization. We hypothesize that:
H2: The amount of time spent reading pro-attitudinal news stories will be positively
associated with (a) online political participation, (b) offline participation, and (c) opinion
polarization.
By contrast, counter-attitudinal information consumption can cause people to challenge
the views espoused by pro-attitudinal information (Garrett et al., 2014). People might gain a
better understanding of their political opponents’ issue positions through exposure to counter-
attitudinal political information (Mutz, 2002). As such, counter-attitudinal information
consumption might make people hold ambivalent issue attitudes and fewer intentions to engage
in participatory political activities (Mutz, 2002).
In some circumstances, exposure to counter-attitudinal information via social media

might increase participation intentions (Y. Kim & Chen, 2016), especially if incivility is present
(Hwang, Kim, & Huh, 2014). And, some research on the relationship between counter-attitudinal
information exposure and opinion polarization shows null or nuanced results, such that exposure
to ideologically diverse content online might not influence polarization outcomes (J. Lee, Choi,
Kim, & Kim, 2014) or might yield a mix of polarization and depolarization effects, depending on
the context and particular political issue (Y. Kim, 2015).
Yet, evidence generally shows that contact with counter-attitudinal information
diminishes political behavior (Matthes, 2012) and weakens (i.e., depolarizes) attitudes
(Westerwick et al., 2017). In the social media context, recent surveys with Americans found that
counter-attitudinal discussion on social media was linked to less political participation (Lu,
Heatherly, & Lee, 2016) and counter-attitudinal news exposure on Facebook produced
depolarization over time (Beam et al., 2018). To that end, the evidence suggests that counter-
attitudinal political information exposure will reduce the degree to which issue opinions are
polarized along partisan lines. The following hypothesis is proposed:
H3: The amount of time spent reading counter-attitudinal news stories will be negatively
associated with (a) online political participation, (b) offline participation, and (c) opinion
polarization.
2.3. The effect of information stance on selective sharing
The presence of an expressive goal has been shown to enhance confirmation bias in
message exposure (Smith, Fabrigar, Powell, & Estrada, 2007). This need to present one’s
identity and opinions are even more pertinent when it comes to selective sharing, as the sharing
is often directed at a large audience (if not public) and plays a role in individual self-presentation
(Coppini et al., 2017). In the context of social media, news sharing encompasses outwardly
expressive activities such as recommending, posting, or forwarding various forms of news and
political information to the members of one’s social network (Kümpel, Karnowski, & Keyling,
2015), plus other interactions such as comments or likes which signal engagement with news.
Network analyses of social media data have consistently shown that people selectively
share attitude-affirming political information such as hyperlinked blogposts (Adamic & Glance,
2005) or tweets (Barbera, Jost, Nagler, Tucker, & Bonneau, 2015; Colleoni, Rozza, &
Arvidsson, 2014). However, such big data analyses have certain limitations. For instance, big
data analyses are often restricted to publicly available data, potentially yielding unrepresentative
samples (Garrett, 2013). Thus, it is equally important to corroborate findings from analyses of
big data with research carried out using other types of methodologies such as surveys or
experiments (Garrett, 2013). Furthermore, survey and experimental designs allow for greater
inferences about mental processes and causal steps, and have unique strengths with regard to
selective exposure research (Clay, Barber, & Shook, 2013). As such, this study uses an online
experiment embedded within a web-based behavior-tracking study of social media news use to
examine whether people are more likely to share pro-attitudinal social media news items over
counter-attitudinal news items.
Furthermore, some scholars have argued that pro-attitudinal information sharing is a
much more consistently observed phenomenon on social media platforms than selective
exposure (Shin & Thorson, 2017). People do not always fully attune themselves to pro-
attitudinal information (Garrett et al., 2013). There are times when they will deliberately attend
to counter-attitudinal political information, e.g., because they want to develop arguments against
opposing viewpoints (Knobloch-Westerwick & Kleinman, 2012). In contrast, sharing counter-
attitudinal information could create conflict or misunderstanding with one’s network. Pro-
attitudinal information sharing on social media represents an overt reflection of one’s partisan
values (Shin & Thorson, 2017). Notably, Shin and Thorson (2017) found that people are more
likely to re-tweet fact-checking messages that favor the in-party over those that favor the out-
party as an overt statement of loyalty and support for their in-party. All in all, people may be less
likely to share counter-attitudinal information than to read counter-attitudinal information.
H4: People will be more likely to share pro-attitudinal than counter-attitudinal news
stories on social media.
RQ1: Is the sharing of pro- versus counter-attitudinal news stories on social media a
stronger pattern than exposure to pro- versus counter-attitudinal news stories?
2.4 The effect of selective sharing on political participation and political polarization
Current research has mostly focused on establishing the positive relationship between
generalized political information sharing and political participation (Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneux, &
Zheng, 2014; Vaccari et al., 2015). Online information sharing increases political participation
by increasing issue knowledge and enabling people to co-organize political events (Kwak,
Williams, Wang, & Lee, 2005; F. Lee, Chen, & Chan, 2017; Valenzuela, 2013). Given that
selective sharing of attitude-affirming information is a bold, outward expression of one’s partisan
leanings (Shin & Thorson, 2017), it is likely that such selective sharing will make one’s partisan
identity even more cognitively salient than selective exposure alone. Although there is some
cross-sectional evidence that news sharing on social media may increase network heterogeneity
(i.e., contact with others with divergent opinions; Choi & Lee, 2015), it can foster relationships
with like-minded others. News sharing can also produce feelings of certainty and efficacy
(Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar, 2015). It is a logical inference that the sharing of pro-attitudinal
information will have stronger effects than pro-attitudinal news exposure on empowering people
to collaborate with other in-party members on events or causes benefiting their political party.
Relatedly, the sharing of pro-attitudinal information is likely to be a more consistent
predictor of opinion polarization than pro-attitudinal news consumption. As an outward display
of issue stance, the sharing of pro-attitudinal information is arguably a much more effective
catalyst of partisan beliefs and affiliation than selective exposure (Shin & Thorson, 2017). When
people engage in such partisan-based social categorization, opinion polarization occurs as they
develop extreme views about group norms toward issue positions (Hogg, 2014). Panel survey
data suggest that social media use contributes to political engagement and subsequent
polarization of attitudes (C. Lee, Shin, & Hong, 2018). This study proposes that:
H5: The sharing of pro-attitudinal news stories on social media will be positively
associated with (a) online political participation, (b) offline political participation, and (c)
opinion polarization.
RQ2: Is the sharing of pro-attitudinal news stories on social media a more consistently
positive predictor of (a) online political participation, (b) offline political participation,
and (c) opinion polarization than exposure to pro-attitudinal news stories?
By contrast, the effects of sharing counter-attitudinal social media news on political
participation and opinion polarization are less understood. As outlined above, people are more
likely to share pro-attitudinal over counter-attitudinal information (Shin & Thorson, 2017).
However, scholars have pointed out that the act of sharing counter-attitudinal political
information indicates an outward openness toward embracing, or at the very least reflecting
upon, alternative political views (Lane et al., 2019). This suggests that people who openly share
counter-attitudinal political information are willing to openly admit that they are politically
undecided, and will consequently be less likely to take concrete political action.
Furthermore, when people are unabashedly willing to consider the validity of alternative
viewpoints (Mutz, 2002), it is likely that they will not hold extreme issue positions that conform
to partisan values. In addition, it takes considerably more commitment to share counter-
attitudinal political information on social media than consume counter-attitudinal political
information (Lane et al., 2019). It is thus plausible that sharing counter-attitudinal political
information will be even more effective than consuming counter-attitudinal political information
at reducing political participation and attitude extremity. As such, we propose:
H6: The sharing of counter-attitudinal news stories on social media will be negatively
associated with (a) online political participation, (b) offline political participation, and (c)
RQ3: Is the sharing of counter-attitudinal news stories on social media a more
consistently negative predictor of (a) online political participation, (b) offline political
participation, and (c) opinion polarization than exposure to counter-attitudinal news
stories?
2.5. The moderating role of involvement
The construct of involvement has played a crucial role in explaining how message
processing affects judgments across many domains of media and communication research (e.g.,
Brown & Basil, 1995; Kwak, 1999; Slater & Rouner, 1992, 1996). Scholars have identified three
main types of involvement: value relevant, outcome relevant, and impression relevant (Cho &
Boster, 2005). Although all three types of involvement trigger attitudes related to one’s self-
concept, each type of involvement results in different persuasive outcomes (Cho & Boster,
2005). To date, few studies have examined how these specific types of involvement affect the
degree to which selective exposure and sharing behaviors predict political outcomes. This study
focuses on examining two types of involvement, value-relevant and impression-relevant
involvement, as moderators of the effects outlined in the aforementioned hypotheses.
2.5.1. Value-relevant involvement
This dimension of involvement is defined as “the psychological state that is created by
the activation of attitudes that are linked to important values” (Johnson & Eagly, 1989, p. 290).
A person’s political identity and values are integral to their self-concept (Sherif, Sherif, &
Nebergall, 1965), and will inform their judgments and political information consumption
behaviors (Perloff, 1989). When value-relevant involvement is high, a person’s range of
acceptable beliefs narrows, and they tend to reject a wide set of attitude positions (Cho & Boster,
2005; Fazio, Zanna, & Cooper, 1977). Under such conditions, these types of people will be prone
to engaging in behaviors or exhibiting attitudes that align with their values or beliefs, and
correspondingly just as likely to avoid adopting value-inconsistent behaviors and attitudes (Fazio
et al., 1977).
Given the above, we can predict that individuals with high levels of value involvement
will be especially likely to engage in informational consumption or expressive behaviors that
affirm their political values, such as selectively consuming or sharing pro-attitudinal social
media news. In addition, people with high levels of value involvement are particularly likely to
be politically active, and tend to have very extreme opinions (Perloff, 1989). It is plausible that
such pro-attitudinal political information consumption and sharing behaviors will translate into
political action and opinion polarization at high levels of value involvement. By contrast,
consuming and sharing counter-attitudinal political information are behaviors that ostensibly
conflict with one’s political values (e.g., Lane et al., 2019). People with high levels of value
involvement are more defensively-oriented and unlikely to allow counter-attitudinal information

to shape their political opinions or decisions to partake in political activities. As such, we predict
that the negative effects of counter-attitudinal news exposure and sharing on political
participation and opinion polarization will be weakest when value involvement is high.
H7: People with higher levels of value involvement will be more likely to (a) spend time
reading and (b) share pro-attitudinal versus counter-attitudinal news stories on social
media.
H8: People with higher levels of value involvement will show stronger positive effects of
pro-attitudinal news exposure on (a) online political participation, (b) offline political
participation, and (c) opinion polarization.
H9: People with higher levels of value involvement will show weaker negative effects of
counter-attitudinal news exposure on (a) online political participation, (b) offline political
H10: People with higher levels of value involvement will show stronger positive effects
of pro-attitudinal news sharing on (a) online political participation, (b) offline political
H11: People with higher levels of value involvement will show weaker negative effects
of counter-attitudinal news sharing on (a) online political participation, (b) offline
political participation, and (c) opinion polarization.
2.5.1. Impression-driven involvement
According to Johnson and Eagly (1989), impression involvement is a form of attitudinal
involvement that gauges the degree to which individuals inherently care about the social
ramifications of their opinions. Unlike value involvement, which focuses on an individual’s
deep-seated values or issue attitudes, impression-driven involvement centers on an individual’s

concern about how others perceive them (Cho & Boster, 2005). Thus, people who exhibit high
levels of impression involvement tend to deliberately engage in public displays of behavior that
conform to expectations of important referent groups (Leippe & Elkin, 1987).
Sharing pro-attitudinal social media news can be construed as a public demonstration of
in-party solidarity in front of an imagined audience (Liu, Rui, & Cui, 2017; Shin & Thorson,
2017). Furthermore, participatory political activities can be regarded as outward indications of
the degree to which a person embodies the values of their political affiliation, or seeks greater
affiliation (Huddy, Mason, & Aarøe, 2015). With this in mind, it is plausible that those with high
levels of impression involvement will be most likely to share pro-attitudinal over counter-
attitudinal social media news, and in turn become more politically active after selectively sharing
pro-attitudinal news as explicit signs that they conform to in-party norms. By contrast, sharing
counter-attitudinal political news is antithetical to partisan group norms (Lane et al., 2019).
Consequently, individuals who exhibit high levels of impression involvement might be reluctant
to openly share counter-attitudinal political news and allow such news items to undermine their
desire to participate in political activities. When they do share such content and make a semi-
public commitment to counter-attitudinal information, it is especially likely to shift their
opinions and dampen their participation intentions. As such, the negative effects of counter-
attitudinal social media news exposure on online and offline political participation is likely to be
strongest among those with high levels of impression involvement.
Additionally, holding polarized issue opinions is arguably a more inward manifestation of
one’s political values than political participation (Huddy et al., 2015). Regardless of opinion
extremity, people can choose to keep their opinions to themselves without letting others know
(Cho & Boster, 2005). However, shared opinions are likely to lead to commitment and
reinforcement (Lane et al., 2019). Thus, the moderating role of impression involvement on the
relationship between attitudinal stance and opinion polarization via selective sharing is different
from that of value involvement. Those who desire to make a positive impression on their social
network (Smith et al., 2007) should shift their beliefs and behaviors in the direction of the news
they have consumed, and especially the content they have shared. The following hypotheses are
proposed:
H12: People with higher levels of impression involvement will be more likely to (a)
spend time reading and (b) share pro-attitudinal versus counter-attitudinal news stories on
social media.
H13: People with higher levels of impression involvement will show stronger positive
effects of pro-attitudinal news exposure on (a) online political participation, (b) offline
H14: People with higher levels of impression involvement will show stronger negative
effects of counter-attitudinal news exposure on (a) online political participation, (b)
offline political participation, and (c) opinion polarization.
H15: People with higher levels of impression involvement will show stronger positive
effects of pro-attitudinal news sharing on (a) online political participation, (b) offline
H16: People with higher levels of impression involvement will show stronger negative
effects of counter-attitudinal news sharing on (a) online political participation, (b) offline
The study’s hypotheses and research questions are visualized in Figure 1, which illustrates the
within-subjects differences in pro- and counter-attitudinal exposure and sharing with brackets on
the left-hand side of the model, the between-subjects effects of exposure and sharing on the
dependent variables with paths on the right-hand side of the model, and the moderating effects of
value and impression involvement on main effects indicated with the moderator variables at the
bottom of the figure.

Figure 1. Conceptual model with hypotheses and research questions. Brackets represent within-
subjects effects (tested with paired-sample t-tests, by topic) and paths to dependent variables
represent between-subjects effects (tested with a regression model for each DV, by topic; results
appear in Tables 1 and 2). Value and impression involvement were tested with subsequent
ANCOVAs and regression models. H7a tests moderation of H1, H7b tests moderation of H4,
H8a tests moderation of H2a, H8b tests moderation of H2b, and so on.
3. Method
An online experiment was conducted, using a 3 (issue: Ukraine vs. refugees vs. equal
pay) x 2 (stance: pro- vs. counter-attitudinal) within-subjects manipulation of topic and stance. A
free-choice paradigm (Hastall & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2013) allowed participants to freely
select articles to read and subsequently express intentions to share. The study data, syntax for
analysis, and questionnaire are available at: https://osf.io/p9uzw/.
3.1. Participants
A convenience sample of adult Dutch Facebook users was recruited via invitations
distributed through university students’ social media networks and flyers in campus and public
settings. As an incentive, participants were entered into a drawing for €5 giftcards. A total of 399
individuals completed the questionnaire. Three cases were removed because of invalid self-
reported age, another eight were removed because elapsed time to submit the survey was +/-3 SD
(i.e., > 5 hrs), and a further four were removed because total stimuli browsing time was +/-3 SD
(i.e., > 1 hr). This left a final sample for hypothesis testing of N = 384. This sample was 62.5%
women, and ranged in age from 18 to 68 (M = 29.72, SD = 10.59). The majority (96.6%) had
Dutch nationality and were born in the Netherlands (93.5%). The majority (63.4%) had earned a
college degree (HBO or WO in the Dutch system).
3.2. Procedure
Data were collected from 21 March to 5 April 2016, prior to a referendum on the EU’s
relationship with Ukraine. After completing baseline attitudes and distractors, participants were
presented with an overview page of news articles, from which they could select one or more
articles to read. Participants reported sharing intentions, post-exposure attitudes, participation
intentions, involvement, and other variables. In general, participants reported moderate attitudes
toward the referendum, polarized attitudes toward refugees, and positive attitudes toward pay
equality (see details in Section 3.4). Neutral individuals on the three topics were omitted from
analysis.
3.3. Stimuli
Eight news articles were adapted from Dutch newspaper stories. Six reflected opposing
stances on the three target issues of (a) affirming the EU-Ukraine association in a referendum,
(b) accepting more migrant refugees to the Netherlands, and (c) ensuring pay equality for men
and women. The pro- or anti- stances of the articles was confirmed with a pre-test in which 20
Dutch university students rated headlines for their stance on the issue. The full articles were
rewritten and edited for length and to match the position and tone of their headlines. Two
distractor stories were also included, on soft news topics (single parenthood and monogamy).
Each article preview consisted of a headline and lead (word count: M = 32.75, SD =
3.65), a byline with name and timestamp (e.g., “N. Meyer, yesterday 11:03”). These eight
previews were presented (in a randomized order) in two columns and four rows on an overview
page, from which participants could select articles for further reading (they were instructed to
choose at least one). If a particular article was selected for reading, they were directed to a full
page that presented the entire article (word count: M = 651.5, SD = 43.83). When multiple
articles were selected, the presentation order of articles was varied. Time spent reading
individual articles was unobtrusively recorded by the questionnaire platform (Hastall &
Knobloch-Westerwick, 2013).
To enhance ecological validity, each article (and article preview) was assigned a number
of Facebook likes and reactions, and each article was assigned a number of Facebook comments
that appeared after the articles. The valence of reactions and comments was intended as a
manipulation of opinion climate, but did not yield effects and is not analyzed further.
3.4. Measures
3.4.1. T1 attitudes
Attitudes were measured with 101-point thermometers ranging from 0 = completely
against to 100 = completely in favor. Toward the Ukraine referendum, “the association
agreement between Ukraine and the EU,” M = 48.39, SD = 25.41; 5.7% did not report an
attitude, 30.2% reported a negative attitude, 31.8% reported a neutral attitude at the midpoint of
50, and 32.3% reported a positive attitude. Toward refugees, “allowing more migrants in the
Netherlands,” M = 64.14, SD = 26.45; 4.4% did not report an attitude, 22.4% reported a negative
attitude, 10.4% reported a neutral attitude at the midpoint, and 62.8% reported a positive attitude.
Toward equal pay, “pay equality between men and women,” M = 83.07, SD = 31.39; 4.2% did
not report an attitude, 14.1% reported a negative attitude, 3.9% reported a neutral attitude at the
midpoint, and 77.9% reported a positive attitude. In addition to these scalar attitudes, scores were
trichotomized for the purpose of classifying exposure and sharing as pro-attitudinal or counter-
attitudinal (excluding neutrals by topic).
3.4.2. Selective exposure
Participants selected an average of 2.85 (SD = 1.53) of the eight available articles: six
political articles about the three target issues, plus two lifestyle news distractors. They spent M =
160.16 seconds, SD = 310.47, reading political articles and M = 45.58 seconds, SD = 77.45,
reading distractor articles. The time spent on political articles, by issue, and by stance, was
recoded to reflect whether the stance of the article was pro-attitudinal or counter-attitudinal for
the individual participant (based on their trichotomized attitudes). This procedure yielded
measures of time spent reading pro-attitudinal and counter-attitudinal articles for Ukraine,
refugees, and pay equality.
3.4.3. News sharing intentions
After the browsing opportunity, participants were presented with the headline for each
article, one at a time, and asked three questions: “How likely is it that you would ‘like’ this
article on Facebook?” “How is it likely that you would ‘share’ this article on your timeline on
Facebook?” and “How is it likely that you would post a comment under this article on
Facebook?” Participants indicated their likelihood, from 1 = not likely to 7 = very likely. These
mean scores for these three items—liking, sharing, and commenting—were taken as an index of
sharing intentions (cf. Alhabash, Almutairi, Lou, & Kim, 2019), with α’s ranging from .689 to
.874 for all six political articles. Sharing intentions were variable but relatively low, with a grand
mean across articles of 1.61 (SE = .06). The least shared article type was counter-attitudinal
Ukraine (M = 1.31, SD = 0.75) and the most shared article type was pro-attitudinal refugees (M =
2.04, SD = 1.30).
3.4.4. T2 attitudes and polarization
Attitudes were re-administered for each issue with 101-point thermometers. Polarization
was measured by subtracting t1 attitudes from t2 attitudes. This difference was multiplied by -1
for those with initially negative attitudes, so that a positive score on polarization indicated
greater extremity in the direction of the original attitude, and a negative score indicated
movement in the opposite direction (depolarization). On average, attitudes slightly depolarized
from t1 to t2 for all three issues: Ukraine, M = -6.31, SD = 15.95, refugees, M = -1.39, SD =
12.87, and equal pay, M = -14.61, SD = 27.94.
3.4.5. Offline and online political participation
Participants indicated, regarding politics in general, “how willing you are to…” engage in
different behaviors, 1= not at all willing to 7 = very willing. Three items (adapted from
Kruikemeier, van Noort, Vliegenthart, & de Vreese, 2014) measured online participation (“Sign
a political petition online,” “Send an e-mail to someone to influence him or her politics,” and
“Have a discussion about politics online”), α = .671, M = 2.83, SD = 1.31, and five items
(adapted from Shah et al., 2007) measured offline participation (“Sign a political petition,”
“Participate in a political protest,” “Volunteer for a political party/issue/protest group,” and
“Have a face-to-face discussion about politics,” and “Place a poster or sticker or wear a button
with a political message”), α = .807, M = 3.20, SD = 1.33. Online and offline participation were
strongly correlated, r = .685, p < .001.
3.4.6. Voting intention
Participants were asked “If the Ukraine referendum were held today, would you go
vote?” A majority of 53.9% said yes, 45.8% said no, and only one participant declined to answer.
3.4.7. Involvement
Items were adopted from the Cho and Boster (2005) measure of attitudinal involvement,
and worded with regard to political attitudes. Six items measured value involvement (e.g., “My
life would change if my political views were different”), α = .778, M = 3.88, SD = 1.18, and five
items measured impression involvement (“People could judge me on the basis of my political
convictions”), α = .671, M = 3.53, SD = 0.98. These two dimensions of involvement were
moderately correlated, r = .323, p < .001.
3.4.8. Other measures
Other variables included in the dataset but not included in these analyses are Facebook
use, news use, public opinion perceptions, perceived knowledge, affect, political interest,
ideology, political affiliation, group identification, willingness to self-censor, and conflict

avoidance.
3.5. Analysis plan
Given the use of multiple topics, and the mix of within-subjects and between-subjects
effects predicted, as well as the focus on three dependent variables, the data were analyzed in a
series of tests. Each test was conducted separately for each topic, owing to different patterns of
individuals holding neutral attitudes (e.g., an individual with a pro- or anti-refugee attitude might
have a neutral attitude on pay equality).
First, the within-subjects effects of pro- versus counter-attitudinal exposure (H1) and
sharing (H4) were tested with paired-sample t-tests. Then, the effects of exposure and sharing
were modeled as predictors in regression models for the outcomes of online participation, offline
participation, and opinion polarization. These regression models test the between-subjects main
effects outlined in H2, H3, H5, and H6. Next, value involvement and impression involvement
were tested as moderators of these main effects. Within-subjects ANCOVA tested whether value
(H7) and impression (H12) involvement moderated pro-attitudinal versus counter-attitudinal (a)
exposure and (b) sharing. Interaction effects were probed with the MEMORE macro (Montoya &
Hayes, 2017). Then, to test the two involvement variables as moderators of the effects of
exposure and sharing on the dependent variables (H8-11 and H13-16), regression models
introduced involvement as moderating variables. In these between-subjects analyses, the
PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018) was used to probe interactions with the Johnson-Neyman
technique. Finally, Research Questions 1, 2, and 3 are addressed by comparing the relative
strength of the main effects of exposure versus sharing.
4. Results
4.1. Within-Subjects main effects

To test the basic confirmation bias hypotheses of H1 and H4, paired-sample t-tests
compared pro-attitudinal and counter-attitudinal exposure and sharing for each topic. Topics
were analyzed separately owing to the exclusion of attitude-neutrals. For selective exposure,
there was a significant effect for the refugee topic alone, t(326) = 3.52, p < .001, d = .195, where
more seconds were spent reading pro-attitudinal (M = 33.89, SD = 65.24) than counter-
attitudinal (M = 16.75, SD = 63.99) articles. No effect was evident for exposure to the
referendum (p = .730, d = .022) or pay equality (p = .584, d = .041) topics. H1 was partially
supported. For selective sharing, all three topics showed pro-attitudinal effects: the referendum,
t(231) = 4.26, p < .001, d = .280, refugees, t(310) = 8.92, p < .001, d = .506, and pay equality,
t(337) = 3.48, p < .001, d = .189. H4 was fully supported, and RQ1 was answered: selective
sharing was stronger and more consistently observed than selective exposure.
Table 1
Relationships of Selective Exposure and Sharing with Online and Offline Participation
UA Ref Refugees Equal Pay UA Ref Refugees Equal Pay

→Online →Online →Online →Offline →Offline →Offline
β β β β β β
Model 1: Main effects ∆R2=.198 ∆R2=.268 ∆R2=.242 ∆R2=.315 ∆R2=.384 ∆R2=.349
Pro-Att Exposure .016 -.028 .005 .007 .009 .017
Counter-Att Exposure .054 -.012 .029 .042 -.042 .078
Pro-Att Sharing .232** .286*** .065 .204** .261*** .125*
Counter-Att Sharing .051 .085 .259*** -.011 -.049 .084
Value Involvement .298*** .314*** .348*** .461*** .481*** .506***
Impression Involvement .038 .066 .062 .076 .064 .063
Model 2: Value ∆R =.050 ∆R =.012 ∆R =.021 ∆R =.027 ∆R =.007 ∆R2=.016
2 2 2 2 2
Involvement Interactions
Value*Pro Exposure .649* .121 .344 .487 .238 .413*
Value*Counter Expo. .417 -.337 .450 .163 -.143 -.048
Value*Pro Sharing -.332 -.203 .040 -.262 .013 -.167
Value*Counter Sharing -.112 .332 .313 -.390 .247 .288
Model 3: Impression ∆R2=.027 ∆R2=.002 ∆R2=.005 ∆R2=.018 ∆R2=.005 ∆R2=.004
Impress*Pro Exposure .095 -.130 .059 .135 -.196 .037
Impress*Counter Expo. .429 -.039 .270 .656* .176 -.269
Impress*Pro Sharing -.492 .179 .260 -.269 -.001 .312
Impress*Counter Shar. .964* -.048 -.019 .222 -.118 -.286
N= 231 310 336 231 310 336
Note. Standardized coefficients. UA Ref = Ukraine-EU association referendum. *p < .05, **p <
.01, ***p < .001. Model 2 and Model 3 each build on the main effects in Model 1; Model 2
tested all value-involvement interactions simultaneously, and Model 3 tested all impression-
involvement interactions simultaneously.
4.2. Between-Subjects main effects
Next, regression models for each topic (pro-attitudinal and counter-attitudinal exposure
and sharing as predictors) tested effects on online and offline participation as well as opinion
polarization, controlling for value and impression involvement (main effect models at the top of
Tables 1 and 2). Intention to share the pro-attitudinal article was associated with more online
participation intentions and offline participation intentions for the Ukraine referendum and
refugee topics (Table 1, columns 1, 2, 4 and 5). Sharing pro-attitudinal articles about equal pay
was positively associated with offline participation (Table 1, column 6). For the refugee and pay
equality topics, pro-attitudinal sharing was positively linked to polarization, and attitude-
inconsistent sharing was linked to depolarization (Table 2, columns 2 and 3).

Table 2
Effects of Selective Exposure and Sharing on Opinion Polarization
UA Ref Refugees Equal Pay

β β β
2 2 2
Model 1: Main effects ∆R = .025 ∆R = .121 ∆R = .125
Pro-Att Exposure -.008 .067 -.012
Counter-Att Exposure -.119 .010 .025
Pro-Att Sharing .074 .128* .279***
Counter-Att Sharing -.116 -.328*** -.378***
Value Involvement .023 -.008 -.077
Impression Involvement -.022 .109 -.117*
Model 2: Value Involvement ∆R2 = .036 2
∆R = .014 ∆R2 = .021
Interactions
Value*Pro Exposure -.507 .002 -.179
Value*Counter Exposure .196 .270 -.185
Value*Pro Sharing .149 .202 .190
Value*Counter Sharing -1.093* -.407 -.556*
Model 3: Impression ∆R2 = .015 ∆R2 = .010 ∆R2 = .009
Impress*Pro Exposure .375 -.160 .130
Impress*Counter Exposure -.254 .330 -.290
Impress*Pro Sharing -.371 -.269 .504
Impress*Counter Sharing .653 -.113 -.379
N= 229 310 333
Note. Standardized coefficients. UA Ref = Ukraine-EU association referendum. *p < .05, **p <
.01, ***p < .001. Model 2 and Model 3 each build on the main effects in Model 1; Model 2
tested all value-involvement interactions simultaneously, and Model 3 tested all impression-
involvement interactions simultaneously.
From these main effect findings outlined above, H5a-c were largely supported: the
sharing of pro-attitudinal social media news stories was positively associated with offline and
online political participation, as well as opinion polarization. By contrast, H2a-c, which predicted
positive effects of pro-attitudinal information exposure on political participation and
polarization, were not supported at all. These discrepancies in findings answer RQ2, which
questioned whether sharing of pro-attitudinal social media news stories will be a more
consistently positive predictor of political participation and polarization than exposure to pro-
attitudinal social media news stories, which was indeed the case. H3a-c, which specified
relationships between the amount of time spent reading counter-attitudinal news stories and both
political participation and polarization, proved untenable. However, H6c, which hypothesized
that sharing counter-attitudinal social media news stories will be negatively associated with
opinion polarization was supported for the equal pay and refugee issues. Based on this finding,
RQ3c was answered, such that the sharing of counter-attitudinal news stories was a stronger
predictor of issue depolarization than exposure to counter-attitudinal news stories (except in the
case of the Ukraine issue).
In addition, sharing counter-attitudinal articles about pay equality was positively linked to
online participation (Table 1, column 3). Contrary to H6a, this finding provides some evidence
that counter-attitudinal information sharing was positively rather than negatively associated with
online political participation. This result also addresses RQ3a: Counter-attitudinal sharing was
not a strong negative predictor (in the case of pay equality was even a positive predictor) relative
to counter-attitudinal exposure. Furthermore, there was no association between counter-
attitudinal sharing and offline political participation across all three issues, lending no support to
H6b. This also addresses RQ3b regarding the relative contribution of exposure and sharing.
An additional regression model (not in table) tested whether exposure to and sharing of
Ukraine articles were associated with the intention to vote in the referendum (an outcome
specific to this topic). Only pro-attitudinal sharing was a (positive) predictor, β = .174, p = .035.
4.3. Within-Subjects interaction effects
Within-subjects ANCOVA with value and impression involvement as covariates
identified moderating effects of value involvement on selective (pro- vs. counter-attitudinal)
sharing for stories on the referendum, F(1, 229) = 7.74, p = .006, ηp2 = .033, refugees, F(1, 308)
= 12.33, p < .001, ηp2 = .038, and equal pay, F(1, 334) = 3.91, p = .049, ηp2 = .012. Probing these
interactions with Johnson-Neyman technique via the MEMORE macro (Montoya & Hayes,
2017) found that moderate and high levels of value involvement (≥ 3.16 for Ukraine, ≥ 2.25 for
refugees, and ≥ 3.16 for pay equality, where M = 3.88) were linked to more pro-attitudinal over
counter-attitudinal message sharing, whereas those low on value involvement show no difference
in sharing pro-attitudinal versus counter-attitudinal articles. H7b was supported. Value
involvement fell short of moderating selective exposure to referendum (p = .074), refugee (p =
.080), and equal pay (p = .169) articles. H7a was not supported.
Impression involvement did not moderate selective sharing, (ps > .25), lending no
support to H12b. With regard to H12a, neither did impression involvement moderate the bias in
pro-attitudinal versus counter-attitudinal exposure (ps > .35).
4.4. Between-Subjects interaction effects
Then, regression models were extended to test value involvement and impression
involvement as moderators. One set of models tested value involvement as a simultaneous
moderator of all focal variables (pro-attitudinal exposure, counter-attitudinal exposure, pro-
attitudinal sharing, and counter-attitudinal sharing) on the DVs of interest (Model 2 in Tables 1
and 2). Alternatively, impression involvement was tested as a simultaneous moderator of focal
variables in Model 3 (bottom of Tables 1 and 2). A number of significant interactions emerged,
as indicated in the Tables. The PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018) was used to probe and interpret
these interactions with the Johnson-Neyman method.
There was partial support for H8a-b which hypothesized that pro-attitudinal information
exposure will have positive effects on offline and online participation at high levels of value
involvement. People high on value involvement (the 13.79% at or above a score of 5.306) had a
positive effect of Ukraine pro-attitudinal exposure on online participation. Also, people high on
value involvement (the 14.54% at or above a score of 5.012) had a positive effect of equal pay
pro-attitudinal exposure on offline participation. Although not hypothesized, at low levels of
value involvement (the 1.72% at or below a score of 1.824) there was a negative effect of
Ukraine pro-attitudinal exposure on online participation. Similarly, people low on value
involvement (the 7.42% at or below a score of 2.003) had a negative effect of equal pay pro-
attitudinal exposure on offline participation.
People high on value involvement (the 39.57% at or above a score of 4.058) had a
negative effect of Ukraine counter-attitudinal sharing on their polarization. Similarly, people
with moderate to high on value involvement (the 89.52% at or above a score of 2.486) had a
negative effect of counter-attitudinal sharing on their polarization for the issue of equal pay,
where higher involvement led to stronger depolarization effects. In all, these findings run counter
to H11c, which hypothesized that the negative effect of counter-attitudinal information sharing
on opinion polarization is weakest among individuals with high levels of value involvement.
With regard to H14b, the relationship between counter-attitudinal information exposure
on offline participation depended on impression involvement. However, the effect was in an

unexpected direction. Specifically, people high on impression involvement (the 21.12% at or
above a score of 4.374) had a positive effect of Ukraine counter-attitudinal exposure on offline
participation. Next, people low on impression involvement (the 6.90% at or below a score of
2.062) had a negative effect of Ukraine counter-attitudinal sharing on online participation, while
people high on impression involvement (the 21.12% at or above a score of 4.328) had a positive
effect of Ukraine counter-attitudinal sharing on online participation. This finding ran counter to
H16a, which hypothesized that the negative effects of counter-attitudinal information sharing on
online political participation will be stronger among people high on impression involvement.
In addition, value and impression involvement did not moderate any effects of exposure
or sharing on voting intentions in the Ukraine-EU referendum.
None of the other moderation effect hypotheses or research questions were supported
with statistically significant results. With regard to H8c, H9c, and H10c, which hypothesized that
the respective effects of information exposure and pro-attitudinal information sharing on opinion
polarization would depend on value involvement, there was no support. Furthermore, regarding
H13c, H14c, H15c, and H16c, impression involvement did not moderate the effects of either
information sharing or exposure on opinion polarization.
Also, the effects of pro-attitudinal information sharing on the two types of political
participation did not depend on value involvement. Additionally, moderation analyses showed
that the effects of counter-attitudinal exposure and sharing on both types of political participation
did not depend on value involvement. H9a-b, H10a-b, and H11a-b received no support. With
respect to H13a-b, the relationship between pro-attitudinal information exposure and both types
of political participation also did not depend on impression involvement. The relationship
between counter-attitudinal information exposure and online political participation also did not
depend on impression involvement (H14a). The effects of pro-attitudinal information sharing on
both types of political participation did not depend on impression involvement, lending no
support to H15a-b. Finally, the effects of counter-attitudinal information sharing on offline
political participation did not depend on impression involvement, lending no support to H16b.
In short, H1 was supported (partial, by topic), H4 was supported, H5 was supported, H6c
was supported (partial, by topic), H7b was supported, and H8a-b was supported (partial, by
topic). Participants had confirmation bias in their exposure and sharing. Sharing stories affected
polarization; pro-attitudinal sharing also related to participation. Value involvement heightened
pro-attitudinal sharing as well as the influence of pro-attitudinal exposure on participation.
5. Discussion
In sum, this study’s findings are multi-faceted and complex. In terms of main effects,
results provide partial support for the hypothesis that people will spend more time reading pro-
attitudinal than counter-attitudinal social media news articles. The presence of a confirmation
bias was contingent on the issue: the refugee issue was the only topic to produce more pro-
attitudinal than counter-attitudinal exposure, and it also produced greater selective sharing than
the other two topics. The topic of refugees was the most polarized (at baseline) of the issues
examined in this study, which likely contributes to this difference with the other two issues.
Furthermore, pro- and counter-attitudinal information exposure did not have any main effects on
opinion polarization and political participation.
In contrast, findings showed support for the hypothesis that people will be more likely to
share pro-attitudinal over counter-attitudinal news articles on social media. As hypothesized,
pro-attitudinal information sharing was positively associated with online and offline political
participation for issues pertaining to the Ukrainian referendum and refugees. However, there was
a positive association between counter-attitudinal information sharing on online participation for
the issue of equal pay. Consistent with predictions, the sharing of pro-attitudinal news articles
about refugees and equal pay had positive effects on opinion polarization. Also, the sharing of
counter-attitudinal news articles about refugees and equal pay were negatively associated with
Taken together, the mostly significant positive associations between pro-attitudinal
information sharing and political participation across issue types provide fairly strong support for
the argument that pro-attitudinal information sharing is a much stronger sign of one’s
commitment to their political views than pro-attitudinal partisan-based information exposure (cf.
Shin & Thorson, 2017). When people overtly express their identification with specific political
values or opinions in the form of pro-attitudinal information sharing, such information sharing is
likely to translate into political action. However, it is important to note that the link between
selectivity and participation is essentially cross-sectional, as participation was only measured
post-test. In contrast, the effects on attitudinal polarization may be characterized as causal, as
they control for baseline attitudes. The effects of sharing on polarization are absent for the
Ukraine referendum, which was the least salient and least contentious issue of the three. Given
the confusion or apathy among the Dutch electorate regarding the vote (cf. Van der Brug, van der
Meer, & van der Pas, 2018), sharing information about it on social media would involve less of
an identity-defining statement or catalyst for change.
With regard to interaction effects, there was some modest evidence that the positive
association between pro-attitudinal information exposure and political participation depends on
value involvement. Specifically, a positive effect of pro-attitudinal information exposure on both
online and offline political participation tended to be strongest among those with high levels of
value involvement for the issues of Ukraine referendum and equal pay. This set of findings
provides support for the assumption that people tend to be more politically defensive at high
levels of value involvement. When people are politically closed-minded, they are likely to
engage in pro-attitudinal information consumption behaviors that translate into participatory
action. However, these findings only provide one part of the overall picture: Although not
hypothesized, there were also negative associations between pro-attitudinal news exposure and
political participation when value involvement levels were low for the issues of the Ukraine
referendum and equal pay. Perhaps, at low levels of value involvement, people are more
amenable to allowing opposing political viewpoints to influence their political decisions. And
when people are willing to consider alternative political views, they could experience attitude
ambivalence and develop weakened political attitudes that result in lower levels of political
participation. Alternatively, low-involvement individuals who read pro-attitudinal content may
believe that an active majority agrees with them and that their own political participation is not
needed because others will participate in their place.
In addition, the effects of counter-attitudinal news sharing on opinion polarization
depended on value involvement, for the issues of Ukrainian referendum and equal pay. However,
these findings ran counter to the study’s hypotheses. Specifically, the negative influence of
counter-attitudinal news sharing on opinion polarization was strongest when value involvement
in the issue of the Ukrainian referendum was high. Likewise, the negative effect of counter-
attitudinal news sharing on opinion polarization regarding equal pay was strongest when value
involvement was high. This finding is surprising because people tend to be closed to alternate
viewpoints at high levels of value involvement. It would appear, however, that those high on
value involvement were especially prone to persuasion (i.e., depolarization) if they engaged
with—and shared—news they disagreed with.
Generally speaking, value-relevant involvement was a more consistent moderator of the
relationships that information exposure and sharing have with political participation and
polarization than is impression-driven involvement. Nevertheless, there was a negative
association between counter-attitudinal news sharing on online participation among those with
low levels of impression involvement on the issue of the Ukrainian referendum. This finding
provides qualified evidence for the idea that people with low levels of impression involvement
are unlikely to be strongly committed toward publicly performing actions that align with their
partisan values. When impression involvement levels are low, people seem alright with explicitly
letting their social media followers know that they are considering alternative political stances.
Also, there was a positive association between counter-attitudinal news sharing and online
participation among those with high levels of impression involvement on the referendum issue.
Perhaps, people with high levels of impression involvement openly share counter-attitudinal
news with the goal of openly deriding such information. Such denigration of counter-attitudinal
news in front of an imagined social media audience allows them to explicitly prove that they are
committed to their partisan values, strengthening their resolve to take political action.
5.1. Implications
In terms of theoretical contributions, this study builds upon existing research on political
information consumption and self-expression patterns on social media in the following ways.
First, this study parses out the respective effects of selective exposure and selective sharing on
political outcomes. We demonstrate that people are much more likely to engage in selective
sharing than selective exposure on social media and that selective sharing on social media is a
much more robust predictor of political outcomes than selective exposure. This underscores the
importance of delineating between exposure and sharing when examining how selectivity in
information consumption and political self-expression influence political outcomes. Theories of
selective exposure such as the SESAM (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015) would therefore benefit
from distinguishing between exposure, sharing, and other modes of content consumption and
engagement. Second, scholars have stressed that patterns of selectivity in information
consumption and self-expression on social media can have serious political consequences (Beam
et al., 2018; Lane et al., 2019). This study is thus one of few that examines the effects of both
selective exposure and sharing on different types of political outcomes, specifically participation
and opinion polarization. Our consistent result that sharing is more consequential than exposure
is consistent with theories of public commitment such as identity shift (Lane et al., 2019). People
might harbor polarized issue attitudes internally, but such attitudes are not synonymous with
explicit political action (e.g., Miller & Conover, 2015). For instance, our study shows that pro-
attitudinal information sharing was positively associated with political participation whereas
counter-attitudinal sharing was negatively associated with polarized issue attitudes. This pattern
of findings clearly illustrates that political participation and opinion polarization are conceptually
distinct outcomes. More theoretical development is needed to articulate different processes for
different outcomes in online political communication.
Third, it seems intuitively obvious that highly involved individuals will have very
selective political information consumption and expressive behaviors (Cho & Boster, 2005). Yet
few studies on political social media use have actually tested involvement as a moderator of
selectivity and its effects. Our study addressed this research gap by examining whether effects of
selective sharing and exposure on political outcomes depended on involvement levels. Further
theoretical refinement could articulate conditions under which involvement is consequential, and
future research should include accuracy involvement (Hart et al., 2009; Johnson & Eagly, 1989).
Fourth, many experiments examining online-based selective exposure (for reviews see
Clay et al., 2013 and Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015) have been conducted in the context of news
websites. However, little experimental work has employed social media contexts (but see Kaiser,
Keller, & Kleinen-von Königslöw, in press; Mothes & Ohme, 2019), even though large
majorities of individuals have become reliant on Facebook and other social media for news
rather than online news sites (Bakshy et al., 2015; Settle, 2018). As such, this study improves
upon previous study designs by using a free choice paradigm to examine partisan selective
exposure and sharing in the context of a Facebook news feed.
This study’s findings have practical implications for harnessing social media platforms
for political engagement. Given that this study’s findings largely show that pro-attitudinal news
sharing is positively associated with political participation, campaign practitioners and
politicians can encourage their voter base to share political messages that favor their in-party
through their online social networks. Such selective sharing not only helps to keep other people
politically informed, but also makes people themselves more likely to take tangible political
action. Furthermore, messages tailored to match peoples’ partisan leanings and levels of value
involvement can be disseminated through online social networks to foster political engagement.
Based on this study’s findings, campaign planners can identify voters from their own camp with
high levels of value involvement on social media and increase political participation levels
among these individuals by encouraging them to share pro-attitudinal news stories. Furthermore,
research has shown that Facebook news use can lead to depolarization (Beam et al., 2018).
Similarly, our study’s findings show that sharing counter-attitudinal political information in a
Facebook context leads to less polarized issue attitudes, regardless of value involvement levels.
With this in mind, social media platforms can devise strategies to promote counter-attitudinal
information sharing, e.g., by designing advertisements to encourage people from all types of
value involvement levels to like, share, or comment on counter-attitudinal (or perhaps balanced,
cf. Brenes Peralta et al., 2017) news. Ultimately, such counter-attitudinal news sharing on
Facebook is likely to be beneficial to democracy by causing even people with higher levels of
value involvement to hold less extreme attitudes and embrace alternative issue viewpoints.
5.2. Limitations and future research
In terms of study limitations, this study did not measure political participation levels prior
to stimuli exposure. This prevents us from making causal claims about how selective exposure
and selective sharing affect political participation. Nevertheless, this study still provides
consistent evidence for the association between selective sharing and political participation.
Furthermore, this study operationalized selective sharing by using items gauging the likelihood
of commenting on the news article or “liking” the news article. On the one hand, these items can
be regarded as generalized indicators of expressive social media political use (e.g., Macafee &
De Simone, 2012). Future research can explore differences in the affordances of social media
sharing (e.g., liking vs. sharing). Moreover, measuring actual sharing (i.e., participants’ sharing
behavior in their own networks rather than sharing intentions in a questionnaire), perhaps in an
unobtrusive manner, can address limitations associated with self-reported intentions. Also, this
study did not examine mechanisms related to confirmation bias such as cognitive dissonance or
motivated reasoning. Future research examining partisan selectivity on social media should
incorporate such mechanisms into their study design, to better explain the links between
selectivity and its effects on political outcomes. A further limitation is the focus on three specific
topics (although varied in salience and baseline polarization) and variation that might exist in
stimuli (e.g., in argument strength). Future work should continue to include more variation in
topics and message design. Nevertheless, this study provides strong evidence of selective
information consumption and self-expression behaviors in Netherlands, a country with a multi-
party system, and makes a particularly unique contribution by juxtaposing exposure and sharing.
With regard to directions for research, future studies can examine how social media cues
such as the number of “likes” or “reactions” moderate the effects of selective exposure and
selective sharing on political outcomes. Furthermore, traditional public opinion theories such as
the spiral of silence posit that people will assess opinion congruence by paying attention to cues
in their social environments. If people perceive their opinions to be in the minority, they will
self-censor by lapsing into silence on socio-political issues (Noelle-Neumann, 1974). It is
important to examine whether the tenets of such theories receive support in the context of online
social environments (Liu et al., 2017). Future studies can thus examine the respective effects of
selective exposure and selective sharing on other outcome variables such as political efficacy or
specific opinion expressions in social media. In addition, cross-national comparisons can help to
validate study findings and examine differences across political systems and cultures. Future
research should examine how the present predictions and findings will fare in other countries.
5.3. Conclusion
In sum, this study builds upon existing research on selective exposure and sharing in the
following ways: First, this study uses a free-choice experimental design to provide much stronger
evidence for the effects of information stance on selective sharing than on selective exposure.
Second, selective sharing is a much more consistent predictor of political outcomes than
selective exposure. Third, the effects of selective sharing and exposure on political outcomes
depend more on value involvement than impression involvement. Fourth, issues matter. By using
a variety of topics that varied in their preexisting salience and polarization, we introduced
variation that may explain the differences seen in confirmation bias and its effects. Future
research should even more systematically vary issue characteristics to test how they shape
selectivity effects. As social media platforms continue to play an important role in the political
process, more research needs to be conducted to understand how individual level predispositions
and socio-environmental factors can exacerbate or attenuate the effects of partisan selective
exposure and sharing behaviors on key political outcomes.

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Research Highlights
• An experiment showed Dutch adults were more selective in sharing than exposure.
• Selective sharing was most predictive of political polarization and participation.
• Some selectivity effects were strengthened by value or impression involvement.
• The findings also varied by issue, which diverged in pre-existing polarization.

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Issues, involvement, and influence: Effects of selective exposure and sharing on

To appear in: Computers in Human Behavior

Received Date: 3 June 2019

© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Issues, Involvement, and Influence: Effects of Selective Exposure and Sharing on

Polarization and Participation

1885 Stadium Road

Gainesville, FL 32611, USA

2550 Campus Road

Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands

Author Note: No competing interests exist.

The relative contributions of selecting versus sharing pro-attitudinal (and counter-attitudinal)

exposure. Second, pro-attitudinal selective sharing is a more robust predictor of political

and its effects on political outcomes.

Keywords: selective exposure, selective sharing, polarization, online news, online

participation, involvement, experiment

is well-documented (Hart et al., 2009; Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015). Selective exposure, a

2015; Weeks, Lane, Kim, Lee, & Kwak, 2017).

Despite increasing scholarly attention devoted to understanding how selective exposure

levels of concern about others’ evaluations of their political preferences.

research is needed on the process of—and potential for—polarization in multi-party systems

such as the Netherlands.

and counter-attitudinal political content on Facebook) on political participation and opinion

women. Moreover, we investigate two forms of attitudinal involvement—value-involvement and

impression-involvement—as moderators not only of selectivity, but also of selectivity’s effects

on polarization and participation.

2.1. The effect of information stance on selective exposure

selective consumption of pro-attitudinal political information (Garrett, 2009b). Likewise, the

media (e.g., Westerwick et al., 2017).

even exclusively, in some formulations. We take a broader definition of selective exposure,

evident in exposure to political information presented in a social media context.

stories on social media.

Next, we can expect pro- and counter-attitudinal political information consumption to

increase participation and opinion polarization. We hypothesize that:

By contrast, counter-attitudinal information consumption can cause people to challenge

attitudinal political information (Mutz, 2002). As such, counter-attitudinal information

in participatory political activities (Mutz, 2002).

In some circumstances, exposure to counter-attitudinal information via social media

the context and particular political issue (Y. Kim, 2015).

Yet, evidence generally shows that contact with counter-attitudinal information

polarized along partisan lines. The following hypothesis is proposed:

2.3. The effect of information stance on selective sharing

counter-attitudinal news items.

Furthermore, some scholars have argued that pro-attitudinal information sharing is a

opposing viewpoints (Knobloch-Westerwick & Kleinman, 2012). In contrast, sharing counter-

likely to share counter-attitudinal information than to read counter-attitudinal information.

stories on social media.

stronger pattern than exposure to pro- versus counter-attitudinal news stories?

selective sharing of attitude-affirming information is a bold, outward expression of one’s partisan

Relatedly, the sharing of pro-attitudinal information is likely to be a more consistent

predictor of opinion polarization than pro-attitudinal news consumption. As an outward display

and (c) opinion polarization than exposure to pro-attitudinal news stories?

By contrast, the effects of sharing counter-attitudinal social media news on political

to partisan values. In addition, it takes considerably more commitment to share counter-

attitudinal political information on social media than consume counter-attitudinal political

at reducing political participation and attitude extremity. As such, we propose:

RQ3: Is the sharing of counter-attitudinal news stories on social media a more

participation, and (c) opinion polarization than exposure to counter-attitudinal news

2.5. The moderating role of involvement

focuses on examining two types of involvement, value-relevant and impression-relevant

involvement, as moderators of the effects outlined in the aforementioned hypotheses.