Convince with facts: Information effects on attitudes to the sickness insurance in Sweden

Abstract

Does factual information matter for policy evaluations and attitudes? Previous research has provided different, and partly contradictive, replies to this question. To test the effect of concrete facts on attitudes, we provide findings from a survey web‐experiment concerning satisfaction with the universal sickness insurance. The treatments in the experiment are short facts from official reports on how the insurance actually work and is used. Our dependent variables are general satisfaction with how the insurance works, as well as trust for the responsible agency administering the insurance and more specified perceptions on capacity, precision, and fairness of the insurance. The results show that under certain circumstances, policy‐specific information does have an effect – even though the effects are not consistent. Effects of the information were mainly found on general evaluations of the sickness insurance rather than on specific attitudes. Furthermore, we conclude that, contrary to expectations, the effects were not conditional on left–right position, subjective knowledge, political interest, or proximity.