Devils, Angels, and the Power of Policy Characters: Narrative Framing and Public Opinion on Local Employment Policy

Policy actors routinely frame contested decisions by casting opponents as villains or allies as heroes, yet we know less about whether the power attributed to those characters changes the efficacy of such narratives. In a pre-registered, three-wave survey experiment, participants read a policy scenario related to a local council funding decision with options to fund programmes for older-workers or younger workers, followed by two narratives that crossed character valence (devil shift vs. angel shift) with character power (empowered vs. diminished). Narratives transmitted their intended characterisations with large effects: villain framing cut perceived out-group good faith, and power portrayals moved perceived influence by nearly a full standard deviation. Devil-shift narratives raised perceived conflict and issue salience, and shifted funding preferences toward the in-group, while character power altered almost nothing except funding preferences, where the diminished villain outperformed the empowered one.