The Northwestern Political Science Research Lab (PSRL) is located in Scott Hall 319. The lab includes 15 networked laptop stations with internet access, MediaLab, and Z-Tree software. (The laptops also can be used for studies off-site.) Use of the lab is available to political science faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students for conducting research and is available to other Northwestern affiliates upon request to Prof. Jamie Druckman.
PSRL also supports the Undergraduate Political Science Research Participation Requirement, which serves to provide a participant pool for those conducting research in the lab. The Research Pool Coordinator for the 2021-2022 academic year is Suji Kang (sujikang2023@u.northwestern.edu). More information about the requirement can be found here.
Researchers who want to use the lab and/or participant pool should first consult the lab policies document. DOC
PSRL participates in the Consortium for Laboratory Experiments in Political Science.
A platform for executing experiments with nationally-representative samples is Time Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS). Jamie Druckman currently serves as Co-PI for TESS. More information about TESS can be found here.
Sample Publications from PSRL Research
Busby, Ethan C., Adam J. Howat, Jacob E. Rothschild, and Richard M. Shafranek. The Partisan Next Door: Stereotypes of Party Supporters and Consequences for Polarization in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming. Link
Busby, Ethan C. Should You Stay away from Strangers? Conducting Experiments on the Political Consequences of Intergroup Contact. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Link
Levy, Jeremy, Robin Bayes, Toby Bolsen, and James N. Druckman. “Science and the Politics of Misinformation.” In Howard Tumber and Silvio Waisbord, Routledge Companion to Media Misinformation & Populism. New York: Routledge, 2021.
Shafranek, Richard M. “Political considerations in nonpolitical decisions: A conjoint analysis of roommate choice,” Political Behavior, 43(1): 271-300, 2021. PDF
Anderson, Sarah E., Daniel M. Butler, and Laurel Harbridge-Yong. “Rejecting Compromise: Legislators' Fear of Primary Voters, ” New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Link
Michelson, Melissa R. and Brian F. Harrison. “Transforming Prejudice: Identity, Fear, and Transgender Rights, ” New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Link
Shafranek, Richard M. “Political Consequences of Partisan Prejudice,” Political Psychology, 41(1): 35–51, 2020. PDF
McGrath, Mary C. and Alan S. Gerber. “Experimental evidence for a pure collaboration effect, ” Nature Human Behaviour, 3: 354–360, 2019. PDF
Gans-Morse, Jordan, Alexander Kalgin, Andrei Klimenko, Dmitriy Vorobyev, and Andrei Yakovlev. “Public Service Motivation as a Predictor of Altruism, Dishonesty, and Corruption, ” Institute for Policy Research Working Paper Series, 2019. PDF
Gans-Morse, Jordan. “Self-Selection into Corrupt Judiciaries, ” Institute for Policy Research Working Paper Series, 2019. PDF
Mullinix, Kevin J. “Civic Duty and Political Preference Formation,” Political Research Quarterly, 71(1): 199-214, 2018. PDF
Druckman, James N., Matthew S. Levendusky, and Audrey McLain. “No Need to Watch: How the Effects of Partisan Media Can Spread via Inter-Personal Discussions,” American Journal of Political Science, 62: 99-112, 2018. PDF, ONLINE APPENDIX
Busby, Ethan C., David Doyle, Kirk A. Hawkins, Nina Wiesehomeier. “Activating populist attitudes: The role of corruption.” In Kirk A. Hawkins, Ryan Carlin, Levi Littvay, and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, eds., The ideational approach to populism: Concept, theory, and method, 374-395, 2018. New York: Routledge.
Rothschild, Jacob E., Adam J. Howat, Richard M. Shafranek, and Ethan C. Busby. “Pigeonholing Partisans: Stereotypes of Party Supporters and Partisan Polarization.” Political Behavior: 1-21, 2018. PDF
Gans-Morse, Jordan, Alexander S. Kalgin, Andrei V. Klimenko, and Andrei A. Yakovlev. “Motivations for Public Service in Corrupt States: Evidence from Post-Soviet Russia, ” Higher School of Economics Public and Social Policy Working Paper Series, 2017. PDF
Robison, Joshua. “The Social Rewards of Engagement: Appealing to Social Motivations to Stimulate Political Interest at High and Low Levels of External Efficacy, ” Political Studies, 65:24-41, 2017. PDF
Mullinix, Kevin J. “Partisanship and Preference Formation: Competing Motivations, Elite Polarization, and Issue Importance, ” Political Behavior, 38:383-411, 2016. PDF
Robison, Joshua, and Kevin J. Mullinix. “Elite Polarization and Public Opinion: How it is Communicated and its Effects, ” Political Communication, 33:261-282, 2016. PDF
Druckman, James N., Mauro Gilli, Samara Klar, and Joshua Robison. “Measuring Drug and Alcohol Use Among College Student-Athletes,” Social Science Quarterly, 96:369-380, 2015. PDF, ONLINE APPENDIX
Bolsen, Toby and James N. Druckman. “Counteracting the Politicization of Science, ” Journal of Communication, 65:745-769, 2015. PDF
Mullinix, Kevin J., Thomas J. Leeper, James N. Druckman, and Jeremy Freese “The Generalizability of Survey Experiments, ” Journal of Experimental Political Science, , 2015. PDF
Bolsen, Toby, James N. Druckman, and Fay Lomax Cook. “The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion,” Political Behavior, 36:235-262, 2014.PDF
Klar, Samara. “Partisanship in a Social Setting,” American Journal of Political Science, 58:687-794, 2014. PDF
Leeper, Thomas J.“The Informational Basis for Mass Polarization,” Public Opinion Quarterly 78:27-46, 2014. PDF
Druckman, James N. “Stunted Policy Support,” Nature Climate Change, 3: 617, 2013. PDF
Druckman, James N., Erik Peterson, and Rune Slothuus. “How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation,” American Political Science Review, 107: 57-79, 2013. PDF
Klar, Samara. “The Influence of Competing Identity Primes on Political Preferences,” Journal of Politics, 75:1108-1124, 2013. PDF
Druckman, James N. and Arthur Lupia. “Experimenting with Politics,” Science 335: 1177-1179, 2012. PDF
Druckman, James N., Jordan Fein, and Thomas J. Leeper. “A Source of Bias in Public Opinion Stability,” American Political Science Review, 106: 430-454, 2012. PDF
Druckman, James N. and Thomas J. Leeper.“Is Public Opinion Stable?: Resolving the Micro-Macro Disconnect in Studies of Public Opinion,”Daedalus 141:50-68, 2012. PDF
Druckman, James N. and Thomas J. Leeper.“Learning More from Political Communication Experiments: Pretreatment and Its Effects,”American Journal of Political Science, 56: 875-896, 2012. PDF
Harrison, Brian F.“Bully Partisan or Partisan Bully?: Partisanship, Elite Polarization, and U.S. Presidential Communication,”Dissertation Chapter 3, 2012.PDF
Druckman, James N. and Toby Bolsen.“How Scientific Evidence Links Attitudes to Behaviors,”in David Dana, ed., The Nanotechnology Challenge: Creating Law and Legal Institutions for Uncertain Risks. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012. PDF
Bolsen, Toby. 2011. “A Light Bulb Goes On: Invoking Norms in Appeals for Collective Action.”Political Behavior. PDF
Druckman, James N., and Toby Bolsen. 2011. “Framing, Motivated Reasoning, and Opinions about Emergent Technologies,” Journal of Communication 61: 659-688. PDF
Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2011. “Identifying Frames in Political News.” In Erik P. Bucy and R. Lance Holbert, eds., Sourcebook for Political Communication Research: Methods, Measures, and Analytical Techniques. Routledge. PDF
Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2010. “Dynamic Public Opinion: Communication Effects Over Time,” American Political Science Review 104: 663-680. PDF
Druckman, James N., Cari Lynn Hennessy, Kristi St. Charles, and Jonathan Weber. 2010. “Competing Rhetoric Over Time: Frames Versus Cues,” The Journal of Politics, 72: 136-148. PDF
Druckman, James N. 2010. “Competing Frames in a Political Campaign,” in Brian F. Schaffner and Patrick J. Sellers, eds., Winning with Words: The Origins and Impact of Framing, 101-120. New York: Routledge. PDF
Druckman, James N., Cari Lynn Hennessy, Martin J. Kifer, and Michael Parkin. 2010. “Issue Engagement on Congressional Candidate Websites (2002-2006),” Social Science Computer Review 28: 3-23. PDF
Druckman, James N., Martin Kifer, and Michael Parkin. 2010. “Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative on Congressional Campaign Websites, 2002-2006,” Political Communication, 27: 88-103. PDF
Druckman, James N., Martin Kifer, and Michael Parkin. 2009. “Campaign Communications in U.S. Congressional Elections,” American Political Science Review 103: 343-366. PDF
Amanda Sahar d'Urso. “What does Muslim/MENA Mean?” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
A recent study (d'Urso, Under Review) suggests white Americans do not assign those from Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) countries as white, despite being legally classified as such under US law. However, this study did not consider how white Americans would classify those from the MENA if a specific 'Middle Eastern and North African' label was not explicitly given. This measurement study found that in the event that no MENA label was presented, on average, respondents did not assign MENA individuals as white. Most often, respondents selected either 'Asian' or 'other'. However, when MENA was presented as an option, respondents overwhelmingly selected this option. This suggests not including the category could result in measurement error when evaluating MENA individuals.
Additionally, we wanted to see how often individuals conflated Muslims with Middle Easterners and vice versa. We randomly assigned respondents to either to write an open-ended response about a typical MENA American or a typical Muslim American. Qualitative coding of the responses found that, on average, when prompted to write about Muslim Americans, respondents mentioned a typical Muslim being from the MENA roughly 10% of the time. On the other hand, when prompted to write about MENA Americans, respondents mentioned a typical MENA individual being Muslim roughtly 25% of the time. This may suggest that MENA individuals are associated with being Muslim more often than Muslims being MENA. These findings are to be used to supplement conjoint analyses on the intersection of Muslim and MENA identity on belongingness in the US.
Caroline Pippert. “Audit Studies Research.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
Audit studies are a common tool in political science research used to test the responsiveness of elected officials to their constituents. Most examine which legislators respond to constituent requests or the content of their responses to evaluate the responsiveness of the legislator and by extension, their legislative effectiveness. Our study is designed to test the assumption that responsiveness is a good measure of legislative effectiveness by examining how getting a response affects the attitudes of the constituent sending the request.Sam Gubitz. “Preference Change Research.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
I used the subject pool to test whether people’s preferences change depending on how you ask them to rank their preferences. One group was asked to simply rank order what they thought the most important political issues at the time, much like traditional surveys do. Another group was given a series of questions where they were asked which issue among several were the most or least important issue. By doing a series of these questions, you can ascertain people’s rank order preferences without them even knowing the nature of what you’re asking. This allows the researcher to come closer to “true” preferences, a little more free from the artifacts of the survey format.Daniel Molden. “Political Affiliation and Student Inferences.” Psychology Faculty Research (2021).
I used the participant pool to conduct three studies on students’ inferences about others’ based on their political affiliation and how these inferences might inform their decisions to interact with others. Results showed that people’s political affiliations are a uniquely strong cue for inferring others’ values, and, further, that values are a uniquely strong cue for making decisions about interactions. This illustrates a current symptom, and potential cause, for the extreme political polarization and high degrees of negative partisanship that currently exist in the US. The data collected in the subject pool also served as pilot data for a successful grant as part of the Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Scientists that will allow the further evaluation of these effects in a nationally representative population.Monique Newton. “Anxiety Research” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
I used the subject pool to explore if anxiety triggered by federal officials affected attitudes toward local political officials. In this experiment, I examined if President Donald Trump getting Covid influenced the level of support for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.Irene Kwon. “Marginalized and Financial Identities Research.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
Financialization and inequality are arguably the most defining features of the contemporary U.S. economy. Rather than "democratizing" asset ownership, financialization has exacerbated socioeconomic disparities along the racial, gender, and immigration-status dimensions. Given this context, my research focuses on the often-hidden intersections between marginalized group identities and latent financial identities. I aim to test the relations between Americans' social identities (e.g., as a person of color, immigrant, woman), their latent financial market identifications (e.g., as primarily a debtor or an investor), and their beliefs about "everyday" forms of financial activity and preferences towards economic/financial policies (e.g., student debt relief programs). The subject pool was an invaluable resource for me (1) to come up with and modify hypotheses, (2) to run pilot rounds of the survey to make sure that the questions are understandable, and (3) to have preliminary statistical findings for power analysis.Farhana Islam. “Determining Unawareness in Environmental Justice Issues and Potential Solutions.” Legal Studies Research (2021).
In this study, the objective was to determine whether environmental justice problems have more or less unawareness compared to global environmental issues related to conservation. Using the political science research pool, I was able to send a comprehensive questionnaire confirming that the participants were generally more aware of global environmental issues rather than environmental justice issues. I was also able to survey participants' preferences for educational tools to learn about environmental issues, providing potential options to solve environmental justice unawareness.Matthew Nelsen. “Political Empowerment Research.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
Political empowerment is frequently invoked to explain high rates of political participation within marginalized communities. However, it is unclear whether empowerment exists independently from other important political attitudes, including political efficacy, self-efficacy, and linked fate. Drawing from a series of focus groups, I developed a battery of four questions that aims to measure political empowerment and tested these measures in a survey distributed within the Department of Political Science's Human Subject Pool at Northwestern University. I find that political empowerment is a distinct attitude that is strongly associated with political participation even after accounting for other political attitudes. Next, I plan on testing these questions on a nationally representative survey distributed by NORC at the University of Chicago.Suji Kang. “Misperceptions Research.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
When do people hold misperceptions? Theory of motivated reasoning provides a useful framework to explain why people hold misperceptions. However, much research in the study of misperception tends to implicitly or explicitly assume that misperceptions are generally caused by directional goals. In this article, I argue that accuracy-driven individuals can have misperceptions when the source of misinformation is ostensibly credible, whereas the source credibility is inconsequential for directionally motivated individuals. This study suggests that simply promoting accuracy motivations may not be a sufficient solution to reduce people’s misperceptions.Michael A. Spikes. “Efficacy of Teaching Technique of Cognitive Apprenticeship.” Ph.D. Education and Social Policy Research (2021).
The current project employs a lens of expert and novice thinking to understand the ways in which people can improve their critical thinking skills to support interactions with diverse sources and kinds of information, and particular to this project, outlets of news media. To do so, we test the efficacy of the teaching technique of cognitive apprenticeship toward the building of news media literacy by identifying and exploring differences in how expert and novice news literate individuals approach news stories. Experts should demonstrate proficiency in creating knowledge structures that support the identification and consideration of cues relevant to evaluating the credibility and veracity of news media content. These cues, often discussed in news literacy pedagogy, motivate critical evaluation of the evidence used to support the claims made in a news story. We then propose a learning experience utilizing a model of cognitive apprenticeship that makes the knowledge structures that experts use explicit to novices, and coaches them towards using the same cues on their own. To make this project tractable given the intended timeline, we will specifically identify and explore people’s evaluations of cues for credibility and veracity in news stories. Certainly, these are not the only important cues to be used in news evaluation, but they represent two critical characteristics that have received substantial attention in cognitive science, and that map directly onto crucial practices for news literacy experiences.Robin Xu Bayes. “COVID Optimism Pilot.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2021).
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health directives to maintain social distance forced individuals to make complex decisions about social behavior and interpersonal contact. In this pilot study, we used the subject pool to test the expectations that individuals exhibit optimism bias in these decisions, such that they are comparatively optimistic about the contagion risks posed by their closest social contacts, relative to more distant individuals.Jeremy Levy. “Political Misperceptions and Reality Constraints to Motivated Reasoning.” Political Science Ph.D. Research (2020).
Is motivated reasoning ever constrained by reality? In other words, is certain information so obviously true that it cannot be questioned by individuals who are motivated to believe otherwise? The literature on political misperceptions might seem to suggest that such constraints do not exist. But I argue that such a conclusion would be misleading, because the misperceptions under study are much more ambiguous than we give them credit – our certainty that some belief is false varies across different factual misperceptions. I implement a survey experiment, using the Affordable Care Act as a case study, investigating the ambiguity of misperceptions and the extent to which motivated reasoning is constrained. I find evidence that fewer individuals hold misperceptions when the statement under question is simple and unambiguous. I also find that for more complex, ambiguous statements, corrections need to be more detailed in order to reduce misperceptions.Maya Novak-Herzog. “Consent Vignettes.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
I used the subject pool to measure the extent to which undergraduate students find four axes (affirmation, constitution, capability, and intention) as necessary for consent. I crafted five vignettes, the control variable and each additional vignette with one axis of consent missing in an attempt to measure this.Dan Molden. “A Pilot Study on Political Prejudice.” Psychology Faculty Research (2020).
This project examines how people use political affiliation as a basis for stereotyping and prejudice in comparison to other social categories such as race, gender, or religion. Participants in three separate studies were either asked about the extent to which they used different types of social categories to form impressions about other people’s values or were given targets of different races and political affiliations and asked for their impressions. Preliminary results showed that political affiliation was among the strongest predictor of value judgements and predicted stronger prejudice than race or gender. Follow up studies will more carefully examine how political affiliation may serve as a source of stigma and discrimination.Lucas de Abreu Maia, University of California, San Diego. “Consequences of Ideology: Affective, Attitudinal, and Behavioral Effects of Ideological Identification.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
In this project, I examine possible causal pathways between ideological and party identification. By enforcing either identity, I measure the effect on the other. Preliminary data analysis shows that, as predicted in my theory, ideology is a more stable identity than party identification.Irene Kwon. “Financial Identity.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
I aim to examine Americans’ identities in financial markets. Do they identify as investors or debtors? Are there any partisan, ideological, gender and/or racial differences across how people identify themselves in financial markets? Finally, do different financial identities lead people to have different macroeconomic policy preferences? How are the policy preferences affected by one’s party affiliation? I aim to use the student research pool survey as a pilot for a nationally representative survey for my dissertation project.Jeremy Levy. “Investigating Demonstrably False Misperceptions and Reality Constraints.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
Scholars studying misinformation and misperceptions in the general public seem to agree that misperceptions are prevalent and difficult to correct, and that this poses a problem for democratic competence. However, one might temper these conclusions after paying attention to the way scholars have defined and identified misperceptions in the past. Researchers tend to apply a wide definition when making the case that misperceptions are prevalent, and a narrower definition when explaining why misperceptions are challenging to democracy. In particular, the normative case relies on a definition in which misperceptions are “demonstrably false.” In this project, I employ survey experiments to explore the properties of demonstrably false misperceptions. I find preliminary evidence that they are less prevalent and easier to correct than other misperceptions. My study furthermore provides evidence that there are reality constraints to partisan motivated reasoning.Michael Spikes. “Familiarity with Media & News Literacy.” Ph.D. Learning Sciences Research (2020).
The current project tests the potential of the use of a person's familiarity with media brands that produce news content as an initial assessment of said person's news literacy. The project builds upon a framework proposed in previous research that presented positive correlations between one's level of word and grammar processing and exposure to print materials. The researchers in that study found the use of an Author Recognition Test best predicted levels of exposure to print materials, and was deemed a more efficient measurement tool.Sam Gubitz.“'Knock the f*cking legs off': Black Americans and contentious protests.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
Incivility, or “norm-violating behavior”, is often argued to be deleterious on democratic processes such as reasoned discourse. Some even argue the death of any democracy starts with the deterioration of certain social norms, such as mutual toleration between political opponents. These scholars warn that norm-violating discourse and behavior that seeks to damage the legitimacy of political opponents will also inevitably damage the democratic institutions themselves. I argue this is too narrow of a view of what a “good” democratic society entails. Incivility also has an important positive democratic role in mobilizing the most marginalized in America. To test this idea, I seek to study how uncivil means of protest are endorsed as legitimate by Black and white Americans. The subject pool allowed me to test my initial assumptions that certain types of protest actions (e.g., damaging property, setting fires) are seen as more uncivil than other forms (e.g., marches, vigils). Without these initial data, there would be no project.Margaret Brower, University of Chicago. “Intersectionality & Political Behavior: Why Framing Matters for Women’s Organizations.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
The framing of political issues can have an effect on support for social policies. Indeed, some scholars find that when the framing of an issue varied in how it portrayed or impacted different identity groups (i.e. poor women), there were different levels of support for these issues among the public (see Gross, 2008; Iyengar, 1990; Winter, 2008). However, scholars have not examined how this support varies when issues are framed to incorporate multiple social identities. This paper focuses on how political frames presented by women’s advocacy organizations that vary who the issue impacts by race and class has different effects on women’s political behaviors. This paper draws on mixed methods: a survey experiment of 600 college students and qualitative open response questions. The paper focuses on responses to different political frames of women's issues and examines how behaviors change depending on who benefits from a particular policy agenda. In this paper, I examine (1) willingness to political participate and (2) actual political participation (i.e. signing a petition or joining an organization) among respondents who randomly receive different policy agendas that vary in who the agenda benefits by gender, race, and class. In this paper, I then contextual these findings. Prior to administering the experiment, the respondents are asked a battery of attitudinal questions related to status threat, racism, sexism, and positionality. In this paper I examine to what extent these different attitudes are moderating the behavioral effects. Finally, I collected qualitative responses from participants that prompted them to explain why they would take the political behaviors they either said they would act on or actually did engage in during the experiment. These responses are coded and analyzed by gender and race to further explain how respondents are thinking about their political behavior and how this engagement varies by the framing of a policy agenda.Amanda Sahar d’Urso. “Does MENA Individuals’ Physical Traits and Self-Identification Influence White Prejudice?” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2020).
Research on racial/ethnic classification has long focused on how individuals identify themselves. For instance, recent research focuses on the extent to which Latinx individuals identify as white (Beck & Katz, 1995; Chavez-Dueñas et al., 2014; Golash-Boza & Darity Jr, 2008; Vargas et al., 2017). Other work focuses on how context shapes whether a biracial individual identifies with either their white or their non-white background (Davenport, 2016). This kind of research speaks directly to ethnoracial identification. However, there is less research on out-group members’ reactions to how individuals identify. While ethnoracial identity can be a personal choice, other members of society might not assign that same ethnoracial label. This study is a pilot for the larger experiment which seeks to understand this tension by comparing white perceptions of MENA individuals based on how they identify—as well as factors such as religion and physical appearance.Ivonne Montes Díaz. “The Role of Racial Group Identity and Economic Threat on Attitudes Towards Immigration.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
What is the role of racial group identity and economic threat on an individuals’ attitudes towards immigration? There are well-documented effects of economic threat on the opinion of Americans on immigration. Little is known, however, on how this type of threat interacts with racial group identity in the formation of such attitudes. My main hypothesis is that these two forces are not independent of one another. I use new data from a survey experiment to test this hypothesis empirically. I use a 2x2 experimental design where I manipulate the degree of perceived economic threat and the perceived racial group of the immigrants by the respondent. My main results suggest that economic threat is a significant driver of attitudes towards immigration and its effect is dependent on the perceived racial group of the immigrants.Andrew Thompson. “When Others Are Helped: The Effect of Group Beneficiaries, Group Threat, Narratives on Policy Opinion.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
How are people’s policy positions affected when they learn that other groups will benefit? Here, I explore the effect of positive and negative information about outgroups on policy opinion. I use a conjoint experimental design to investigate how information about group policy beneficiaries and narratives about individual group members affect opinion on the minimum wage. I find when people learn that a threatening outgroup will disproportionately benefit from an increase in the wage, they feel group threat which causes them to select a lower minimum wage for the entire workforce. I also find that narratives about specific workers generate positive attitudes, which result in respondents setting the wage at a higher level. When narratives and group threat are paired together, the narrative vitiates group threat, thereby positively affecting the level of the wage. Overall, this project shows that while group threat may have negative policy consequences, stories about individuals group members can positively overpower group threat.Tabitha Bonilla, Amanda Sahar d’Urso, and Sam 'S,R.' Gubitz. “Where to Place Sensitive Questions in an Experiment---Pre-treatment or Post-treatment.” Institute for Policy Research and Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
Common practices in the use of experiments in political science are ever evolving, but one particular issue has continued to be the subject of debate: the use of post-treatment variables as covariates in regression analyses. Some argue that post-treatment variables should never be used as covariates because the treatment could bias the results of the post-treatment questions (e.g. Montgomery, Nyhan, and Torres 2018). Others, however, argue that sensitive questions should be used as post-treatment covariates to avoid priming effects before experimental treatment (e.g. Mendelberg 2008). Experimental studies on racial attitudes that include measures of racial resentment as covariates are not consistent in their timing of the battery, reflecting the lack of consensus on this debate. We answer this question by experimentally measuring biases that are introduced due to the timing of race-based questions. We argue that this work provides much-needed guidance for scholars studying phenomena prone to bias from measuring racial attitudes and other sensitive measures.Sam 'S.R.' Gubitz. "Political incivility is a feature, not a bug: Why mediated incivility is not bad for democracy." Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
There are broad claims about "bad discourse" in American politics; namely, that certain types of discourse are always inappropriate in politics. However, potentially undermining these concerns is the idea that political incivility may not be universally recognizable amid certain psychological and societal processes. The survey experiment I conducted with the subject pool was intended to pilot my experimental design for assessing what affects people's perceptions of political incivility. I find that the design performed as intended and was able to tweak certain aspects for future iterations of the project, which is a central part of my dissertation.Suji Kang. “The Role of Affective in Measuring Supreme Court Legitimacy.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
I used a sample of students to examine the role of affect in measuring Supreme Court legitimacy. Those who strongly view opposing partisans negatively and copartisans positively are likely to present higher legitimacy when they have ideological agreement with the Supreme Court and lower legitimacy when ideological disagreement than those who feel less affective to the both opposing partisans and copartisans. As Iyengar et al. (2018) noted, it is not so much that people like their own party more over time; rather, there is an increase in out-party animus. It is noteworthy which one between the two, in-group positivity or out-group animosity, more strongly affects Supreme Court legitimacy people estimate. This might be helpful to better understand the variations of estimated legitimacy within the same group for ideological agreement/disagreement with the Supreme Court.Andrew Thompson. “Facing Threat: Analyzing Emotional Reactions to Demographic Change Using Facial Expression Recognition.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
Recent research shows that when people learn about the change in size of minority groups, they feel a sense of threat. There is minimal evidence, however, about the mechanism behind this reaction. In this study, I replicate a previous study I conducted about demographic change, and also use machine learning to capture the automatic emotional reactions of participants.Jacob Rothschild and Ethan Busby. Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
A great deal of research demonstrates that political attitudes and behaviors stem from feelings towards various social and political groups, especially when these groups are engaged in political conflicts. However, little extant research documents how changing relationships among two or more social groups to which an individual does not belong affect the attitudes of these third-party observers. Accordingly, we examine the effects of political conflict between two social groups on individuals who belong to neither of these groups. We find that when political conflict involves a liked group and a disliked group, individuals do not change their evaluations of these outgroups. By contrast, when political conflict involves two outgroups toward whom an individual feels positively, individuals adopt more negative affect for, and express lower solidarity with, the lesser-liked of the two groups. Our results suggest that intergroup political conflict can have far-reaching consequences. Conflict can shift attitudes among those involved and those already aligned with the competing parties; it also, though, can shape the views of third-party observers and potential allies.Ethan Busby and Andrew Thompson. “Different (Race) Cards in the Deck: Images and Text Racial Messaging.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2019).
Recently scholars have found evidence which contests conventionally held views about how different racial messages affect opinion. In understanding the discussion about implicit and explicit racial messages, we consider the different types of effects from implicit and explicit messages by randomly assigning participants to racial messages with text, images, and both. Our central goal is to provide guidance for selecting the best stimuli for those investigating the effect of racial messages. We find that the choice to include an images matters, especially for implicit messages about race.Brianna White, Kumar Ramanathan, and Denzel Avant. Ph.D. Political Science Research (2018).
We conducted a survey experiment on the effects of different frames on whites' support for punitive criminal justice policies. Specifically, we are seeking to enter a debate about whether information about racial bias in criminal justice policy makes whites more or less punitive in their attitudes. We argue that information about racially discriminatory intent tends to invoke norms against racism, making whites generally less punitive, but that information about racially disparate outcomes reinforces commonly held predispositions and stereotypes, making whites generally more punitive. We explore this question by setting up an experiment with a different frame in each treatment condition. Access to the subject pool gave us an opportunity to conduct a pilot study, and ensure that our frames were constructed in a readable and meaningful way, before we conducted the study with a wider sample of respondents.Chris Petsko and Daniel Molden. Ph.D. and Psychology Faculty Research (2018).
We ran an analogous reverse-correlation study to examine how Northwestern undergraduates mentally represent various groups of Democrats. In these data, we found that Northwestern undergrads mentally represent generic Democrats as being highly similar to Clinton supporters, and that they represent these two groups as being highly different from Democrats who do NOT support Clinton. These data suggest a similar mechanism to what we found before: presumed leaders of political parties appear to bear influence on how generic party members are mentally represented.Richard Shafranek. "Political Considerations in Nonpolitical Choices." Ph.D Political Science Research (2018).
Research shows the increasing tendency of partisan considerations to influence decisions outside the context of politics, including residential choice. However, do people mainly choose to socially avoid members of the other party for political reasons, or is partisanship simply perceived to be correlated with relevant nonpolitical considerations? I assess the impact of political and nonpolitical considerations on roommate selection via conjoint analysis.Ethan Busby, Richard Shafranek, Adam Howat, and Jacob Rothschild. "Not all stereotypes are equal: Consequences of partisan stereotypes on polarization." Ph.D Political Science Research (2018).
Our previous research has found that people have distinct images of everyday partisans, and that these stereotypes vary in the amount they reference individual-level traits, group attachments, and political issues. What, though, is the causal impact of holding different kinds of partisan stereotypes? Do those who focus on the traits of partisans go on to express more affectively and ideologically polarized views? We answer these questions through an experiment that asks subjects to stereotype rank-and-file partisans in different ways and then report various measures of political polarization.Ethan Busby and Jacob Rothschild. "Conflict and connections between outgroups." Ph.D Political Science Research (2018).
We explore how conflict among different outgroups goes on to influence the attitudes people report towards those groups. Drawing on psychological theories about consistency and attitude balance, we test ideas about how people bring their views of different social groups into harmony with reported conflict between groups. We use an experimental design that presents subjects with different scenarios, involving conflict between groups subjects’ do and do not report favorable attitudes towards.Chris Petsko and Dan Molden. Ph.D and Psychology Faculty Research(2017).
We ran a reverse-correlation project to examine how Northwestern undergraduates mentally represent various groups of Republicans. In those data, we found that Northwestern undergrads mentally represent generic Republicans as highly similar to Trump supporters, and that they mentally represent both of these groups as being highly different from Republicans who do NOT support Trump. Despite the fact that Donald Trump is (in many respects) an unusual Republican, support for him may now be a presumed characteristic of Republicans writ large.Tabitha Bonilla. “Bridging the Partisan Divide on Immigration Policy Attitudes through a Bipartisan Issue Area: The Case of Human Trafficking.” Institute for Policy Research (2017).
To date, while there is a rich literature describing the determinants of anti-immigrant sentiment, researchers have not identified a mechanism to reduce antipathy towards immigrants. In fact, extant research has shown that efforts to induce positive attitudes toward immigrants often backfire. What if we utilized a bridging frame strategy? Can a bipartisan issue area in which there is general support act as a bridging frame to elicit more positive sentiment toward immigration among those who oppose more open immigration policies? We explore this question by conducting a survey experiment in which we manipulate whether immigration is linked with the bipartisan issue area of human trafficking in a nationally representative sample of the U.S. adult population. Using prior experiments, we find that in forcing individuals to reconcile the fact that a widely accepted issue position of combatting trafficking also requires a reassessment in immigration policies, we can positively shift attitudes on immigration. The laboratory survey helped us assess what mechanisms are at play. Do opinions shift because of motivated reasoning?Tabitha Bonilla. “The Effect of Campaign Promises.” Institute for Policy Research (2017).
Existing empirical work tells us that campaign promises are important for voter evaluations, both prospectively and retrospectively. Studies on campaign promises tell us that candidates make increasing numbers of promises to constituents, but the American public does not necessarily believe that candidates will follow through on their promises. What incentive do candidates have to continue to make campaign promises? I offer a conceptual distinction between promises and non-promise position statements: promises require that a candidate attach an explicit statement of action to a position statement. I argue that this distinction alters perceived commitment that the candidate makes to her position, and subsequently affects voter evaluations of candidates by changing expectations of candidate follow through and character. To test this theory, I conducted an experiment in the lab that indicates that voters who agree with the candidate's stance prefer that the candidate promise, but voters who disagree with the candidate's issue-position prefer a candidate who does not promise. Voters tend to view candidates who promise as more likely to act on their position than candidates who do not. This comes at a cost to assessments of a candidate's character which results in an asymmetry between the gains and losses made from promising, and ultimately allows candidates to strategically employ promises.Ethan Busby. “It's not who you know, it's how you meet: A lab study.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2017).
This study explored the way that different types of social experiences influence students' policy positions, tolerance for protests, and interest in protest movements. Students came to the lab and were randomized to have one of three conversations with a lab administrator. This administrator was from a different racial group than the student. The conversations used the same script, but involved different types of nonverbal cues (such as pauses, eye contact, vocal tone, etc.). The project is one part of my dissertation, and helps establish how the difficulty of a social experience can exacerbate or lessen group-based differences.Matthew Gates. Undergraduate Honors Thesis (2017).
For his senior thesis, Matthew used the lab to expose participants to either a control or one of three arguments in favor of gay rights and to collect demographic data and information on a respondent's level of support for various gay rights policies. These arguments were written by experts in various areas and included the idea that sexual orientation is innate, the argument that gay rights are compatible with a small government worldview and the idea that there are enough gay people that everyone likely knows someone who is gay/lesbian. Matthew analyzed how these arguments lead to change in support for gay rights. Matthew broke this down into different policies including marriage, adoption, hate crimes, employment laws and the "gay wedding cake" issue and into different demographic groups based on gender, religion, political orientation and to an extent race and socioeconomic status.Brian Hamel. Ph.D. Political Science Research (2017).
Scholars of voting behavior have long considered whether voters in primary elections choose candidates on the basis of ideology or general election electability. To further examine this, I conducted a conjoint experiment that varied both of these attributes for a pair of hypothetical candidates. My results suggest that moving from "likely to lose" to "likely to win" dramatically increases the likelihood of voting for that candidate, and that the magnitude of this effect far exceeds the effect of increasing the level of candidate-respondent issue agreement.Laurel Harbridge Yong. Political Science Faculty Research (2017).
In our research into gridlock in legislatures around the country, one of the notable findings is that legislators who perceive that voters punish politicians who compromise are less willing to support legislative compromises. In the survey students participated in, we explored a follow up question: Are there ways that legislators can explain support for compromise that would minimize punishment of politicians who support these proposals? This type of communication/explanation may be particularly important for individuals who disagree with the specific compromise or who generally believe that politicians should stick to their positions. We examined whether support for the politician who supported the compromise differed depending on whether the compromise was described as a gain or as a loss, as well as whether the politician justified it with reference to something being better than nothing or an explanation of how bad the result would be without the compromise passing.Adam Howat. Ph.D. Political Science Research (2017).
My subject pool study investigated the effects of shared group identity (partisanship, gender, or race) and shared values on support for political candidates, as well as how well candidates with those characteristics are perceived to represent different groups. Subjects were presented with mock web pages for candidates that (1) shared their identity or not and (2) expressed a value message considered congruent or incongruent with that identity (or no value message). In this way, the study examines the effects of group identity alone, as well as its interaction with different values, in determining the outcomes of interest.Mary McGrath. Political Science Faculty Research (2017).
I ran a few rounds of the same survey experiment, looking at whether a treatment that tells people they are better at analyzing information than others who look like them causes people's opinion reports to move in the direction of information I provide.Richard Shafranek. Ph.D. Political Science Research (2017).
Recent research on affective polarization has demonstrated that political conflict may sometimes spill over into unrelated areas of our lives. Studies document instances in which partisan considerations influence judgments and behaviors in such ostensibly-apolitical domains as the workplace, the academy, and romantic settings, among others. However, the majority of this work focuses solely on documenting these phenomena, giving little consideration to their potential downstream effects. When politics spills over into apolitical settings – that is, when political considerations influence nonpolitical judgments or behaviors – what are the consequences for those involved? This study attempts to assess some of the potential ramifications of political “spillover.”D.J. Flynn. “The Scope and Correlates of Political Misperceptions.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2016).
Misinformation is an increasingly salient concern among elected o fficials, scholars, and other observers of American politics. A growing literature in political science, psychology, and communications investigates where misinformation originates, how it spreads, and e ffective strategies for correcting it. Yet, the bulk of existing research overlooks a more fundamental question: exactly who gets it wrong? Put diff erently, which types of citizens tend to hold misperceptions? This paper reports the results of an original survey into the scope and correlates of political misperceptions in the mass public. I find, paradoxically, that by far the strongest predictor of misperceptions is an individual’s level of political interest. General political knowledge reduces misperceptions, but its effects are considerably weaker than the impact of interest. I discuss implications for public opinion and representation.Ethan Busby, Adam Howat, Jacob Rothschild, Richard Shafranek. “What are They Like? Stereotypes of Party Supporters.” Ph.D. Political Science Research (2016).
Although some research references partisan stereotypes, little is known about precisely what they contain—what stereotypes do individuals have about people who support the Democratic and Republican Parties? We use a novel survey designed to measure these stereotypes, asking subjects to list the stereotypes that come to mind for partisans in a number of different areas. This is part of a larger project that involves a parallel study on MTurk and national-level data. The project advances our understanding of stereotypes, partisanship, and measurement.Brian Harrison. (2016).
While lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans have seen recent legal victories and declining explicit discrimination, transgender and gender non-conforming individuals (TGNC) remain astoundingly vulnerable to discrimination, detachment from family structures and social institutions, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, and violence. One recent poll finds that almost 25% of Americans don’t know what the term “transgender” means and other polls find that only 8% of Americans say they personally know someone who is transgender. In short, little is known about how the public forms their views of transgender people and rights. This project investigates how individual-level gender identity and salience affects support for transgender rights. Using original data from a survey experiment, respondents were primed to make their own gender identity more/less salient. Respondents for whom gender is important to their core identity were more likely to oppose transgender rights when gender identity was primed; the primes were less effective among those with lower gender importance. In sum, when there is a perceived threat toward traditional gender identity, respondents for whom that identity is important were less supportive of transgender rights.Ethan Busby. "Exploring the Social Side of Populism." Ph.D. Political Science Research (2016).
In many political contexts (including the U.S., Western Europe, and Latin America) populism is an important political force. A number of populist movements and parties have had powerful influences on the politics of many countries; however, researchers are only beginning to answer causal questions about populism through experiments. This study digs into this area by examining the way individuals primed to think of populism interact with other people. Using games from behavioral economics and cooperative tasks, these experiments explore how the different kinds of political problems and populism of others influences interpersonal cooperation.D.J. Flynn. "Misinformation and Candidate Evaluation." Ph.D. Political Science Research (2015).
Many citizens hold misperceptions about relevant facts. In recent years, a growing literature has considered best practices for correcting misperceptions. Yet, existing research has overlooked what is perhaps the most common context in which citizens encounter misinformation: during the course of an over-time policy debate or election campaign. I address this gap with a multi-wave study in which citizens encounter misinformation about a political candidate and corrections in various sequences. Results inform ongoing debates about effective ways to mitigate misinformation in contemporary politics.Jordan Gans-Morse. "The Correlates of Public Service" Political Science Faculty Research (2015).
Throughout the post-Soviet region, state capacity is a significant problem, and efforts to improve capacity via civil service reforms have rarely met with success. One key challenge has been the development of qualified personnel. However, very little is known about who chooses to work as a public servant, and whether those seeking public employment exhibit unique demographic characteristics, skill sets, or personality traits. This project seeks to offer a novel perspective on the issue of state capacity by investigating the viewpoints of future government officials – more specifically, the viewpoints of university students enrolled in public administration programs in the post-Soviet region. The current stage of the research entails the development and piloting of a survey instrument aimed at collecting data on students' motivations for seeking public employment, career objectives, views on public service, and related topics. In May 2015 the survey instrument was administered to NU students via the Political Science Research Laboratory. In addition to providing an opportunity to test and refine the survey instrument, the data collected on NU students will be used as a benchmark against which to compare the results of the survey I will conduct in Russia in September 2015.Georgia Kernell. "Heterogeneity, Candidate Identity, and Party Perceptions." Political Science Faculty Research (2015).
Previous theoretical research argues that a party's position and level of ambiguity should interactively affect vote choice. Observational work supports this claim, but cannot untangle the causal pathways between these three variables. This study holds location constant and varies a party's ambiguity by showing respondents a set of signals about two parties' positions and asking them to rate overall proximity. The second part of this project examines how the gender balance in a party's delegation affects perceptions of competence, proximity, and leadership.Heather Madonia. "Private Politics and Public Opinion." Ph.D. Political Science Research (2015).
The purpose of this study is to better understand how the public feels about business influence in politics. Respondents are randomly assigned to one of 8 conditions. Each condition includes descriptions of 2 issues (education and energy). Factors varied include whether the business is in favor of the issues (pro/on) size of business (big vs. small), and whether or not the business is engaged in private politics. In particular, I focus on how private politics influences citizens' acceptance of business influence in political outcomes.Yoshikuni Ono. "Social Desirability Bias on Survey Responding." Political Science, Tohoku University (2015).
Little attention has been paid to cross-cultural differences in the influence of social desirability bias on survey responding. The aim of this research project is to measure the degree to which cultural differences influence how people distort their answers to survey questions in a socially desirable manner. By using data collected from a survey experiment, this study examined how (1) the presence of social context information and (2) the use of forced-choice items affect the answers of people from different cultures to survey questions. In this study, we recruited students at Northwestern University as participants, and we compared their data with previously collected data in Japan to examine cross-cultural differences.Laura Rozier. "The Media, the Innocent, and the Public: A Nuanced Look at Exonerations and Public Opinion of Capital Punishment." Undergraduate Honors Thesis (2015).
My research sought to explain the rapid decline in public support for the death penalty that began in the mid-1990s and has continued, largely uninterrupted, until today. Previous studies have suggested that this wave of opposition is attributable to a robust and ongoing period of media attention to exonerations, raising awareness of the possibility that innocent people may be—and likely, have been—executed for crimes that they did not commit. Hoping to further elucidate the relationship between media coverage of exonerations and public opinion of the death penalty, I’ve spent fourteen months reading, writing, observing, and experimenting, ultimately happening upon a number of interesting findings. For one, it appears as though all exonerations are not created equal: according to a survey that I conducted in the Northwestern Political Science Research Laboratory, individuals are significantly more confident that exonerees are truly innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted if their release was facilitated by DNA evidence (as opposed to other means). Though perhaps unsurprising, this result is unsettling —it seems that scientific evidence, above all else, casts doubt upon the efficacy of a justice system plagued with errors that are often uncovered without the necessity or even possibility of DNA assistance. Moreover, I found that confidence in exoneree innocence likely has an independent effect on attitudes toward capital punishment. Given that the role of DNA evidence in media coverage of exonerations differs dramatically between stories and over time, it is not far-fetched to posit that the media have a far more complex relationship with public opinion of the death penalty than scholars have heretofore acknowledged. Taken as a whole, the results of this study warrant further examination of not only innocence, the media, and the death penalty, but also of our fundamental assumptions about modern criminal justice.Julia Valdes. "Individuals’ Choice of Recipient of Political Communication." Ph.D. Political Science Research (2015).
Some argue that trust in the United States government has been declining in recent decades, and that the decline has led to a decrease in political participation (Moss and Coleman 2013). Yet, others types of activities can influence political outcomes. This has been accentuated in recent work on “private politics” (Baron 2001; Diermeier 2009a; etc.), where individuals and non-profits directly lobby companies and corporations to achieve political outcomes. This raises the question: do citizens have more of an inclination to engage in private politics than alternative forms of politics? This study tested the extent to which individuals will choose to target a corporation or government agency will depend on the extent to which they believe the government should act like a private corporation, as well as their trust in government and feelings of efficacy. To do this, I designed a unique experiment where individuals will be asked to sign an e-petition directed towards a government agency or a private corporation.Ethan Busby. "Is it better to be anxious or indecisive? A comparison of two approaches to partisan motivated reasoning." Ph.D. Political Science Research (Spring and Fall 2014).
This project examined the role of various kinds of messages can influence individuals' ability to make political choices and form political attitudes objectively. In a survey format, participants read one of a number of messages and were then asked to read information on a political issue and express their opinion on that issue. These messages involved the experience of various emotions and concerns about the individuals' attachments to the two major political parties. Previous studies using online samples validated the questions used in this traditional laboratory setting, and the student subject pool was used to increase the scope of those earlier surveys. The data gathered from this research contributed to the broader areas of political preferences, information processing, motivated reasoning, the nature of political partisanship, and the role of emotions in the political realm.Christoph Nguyen. Ph.D. Political Science Dissertation Research (2014).
The purpose of the study is to explore the role that moods/emotions have in shaping the ways in which individuals assign responsibility or economic hardship, and how these differing attributions translate into party evaluations and vote choice. Moreover, the role of partisanship will also be explored. The study leverages a 3x2 between-subjects design. Study participants will be randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. The core task for all groups will be the same: First, they will be exposed to different videos that prime either anxiety, anger, or a neutral emotional state. Secondly, they will be exposed to a newspaper article that was edited to portray the US economy either in a positive or negative light.Leslie McCall, Sociology Faculty Research (2014).
We are conducting a research study to find out more about the psychological processes involved in people’s attitudes towards a variety of social and political topics and issues. Participants will be asked to read an article on a current social or political issue/topic and answer a series of questions regarding their opinions, preferences, and beliefs, as well as provide us with some basic demographic information.Taking part in this study may help researchers better understand people’s attitudes about various social and political issues and how those attitudes are formed.Kevin Mullinix. Ph.D. Political Science Dissertation Research (2013-2014).
How does elite partisan polarization impact political preference formation in the mass public? In contrast to previous research that finds that polarization heightens partisan biases in the mass public, this study suggests that the consequences are dependent upon the manner in which polarization is discussed. Building upon a content analysis of how the media discuss elite polarization, I suggest that when polarization is criticized and appeals are made for compromise, partisan biases in the mass public are mitigated. The study has implications for the quality and nature of public opinion and citizen competence.Rachel Moskowitz. Ph.D. Political Science Dissertation Research (2013-2014).
This project expands on the growing body of work that identifies the significant role of non-cognitive skills - not content knowledge, but psycho-social behaviors, skills, and attitudes - in academic success (work found in educational psychology). To explore these issues, I fielded a laboratory experiment where respondents were randomly assigned to one of nine conditions about a fictional student. The factors include race (black or white), class (low-income or upper-income), and school quality (fairly successful or nearly failing). I apply research on the power of visual cues and the findings on racial prejudice and implicit racial priming that indicate that subtle racial images can cue racial attitudes (e.g. see Druckman 2003; Mendelberg 2001). I find that these cues affect the perception of a student’s motivations and other academic mindsets. However, the findings about a school-level policy attitude (i.e., school closings) while still related to the individual student’s race and class, were most affected by the school’s overall quality.Joshua Robison. Ph.D. Political Science Dissertation Research (2014).
Media coverage of political conflict often contains information concerning the motives of elite agents or the causes of political events. This study focuses on how descriptions of the causes of elite polarization influence how individuals interpret political arguments made by party representatives. In particular, it focuses on how description of elite polarization as either caused by the strategic incentives of partisan elites or by their differences in values affects source credibility and party framing.Yanna Krupnikov. Political Science Faculty Research (2012).
The study was part of a larger research project about the way individuals use new information to make political choices. In particular, the project focuses on the way individuals might respond to new information that may be considered "controversial" or argumentative. The study conducted in Fall 2012 will work to complement an analysis of survey and advertising data from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections.Brian Harrison. Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2012).
There is limited evidence from existing studies - both experimental and observational - that persuasive messages last in a competitive media environment and over-time. For example, existing work shows that when respondents are exposed to frames with opposite sides of an issue, framing effects are diminished since people will balance these competing options (Chong & Druckman 2007b; Sniderman & Theriault 2004; Hansen 2007). The passage of time also has an effect, as the few experimental studies of communication effects dictate, showing that treatment effects only last several days at most (Tewksbury et al. 2000, Druckman & Nelson 2003, de Vreese 2004, Mutz & Reeves 2005; Iyengar and Kinder 1987: 24-26). Despite this existing scholarship, little to no work has extended this theory to Presidential communication or to persuasion on political issues (i.e. agenda-setting or priming). This study seeks to do just that. Specifically, partisan responses that increase the salience of existing partisan identity should justify the importance of an issue and therefore should lead to more durable agenda-setting effects. I expect that agenda setting may last for everyone, regardless of their partisan identity, but information search, Presidential approval, and issue persuasion will be partisanship-dependent. In sum, this experiment will explore these issues by looking at over-time measurement with information-seeking choices, expecting that effects on approval and agenda setting last under certain conditions depending on a competitive media/message environment, partisan identity, and the choice of pursuing information.Kevin J. Mullinix. “Deception and Experimental Validity.” Political Science Ph.D. Student Research (2012).
In this study, I examine how deception in experiments impact subjects' behavior in subsequent experiments. Rooted in this question is a significant concern about the validity of experiments. Interestingly, the disciplines of psychology and economics are sharply divided on the issue, but only a few studies directly examine how deception affects experimental validity. Druckman et al. (2006; 2011) document the burgeoning use and prominence of experiments in political science, and report that 31 percent of the laboratory experiments appearing in the first hundred volumes of the American Political Science Review use deception. In this study, the effects of a common form of deception are assessed in the context of traditional political communication experiments. This analysis moves beyond the existing literature to examine conditional effects for the time between the deception and subsequent experiments, and the similarity of experimental tasks.Brian Harrison. “The Partisan Pulpit: Motivated Reasoning and Partisan Evaluations of the President.” Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2011).
This experiment examines how partisanship affects attitudes and evaluations of the President and his communication. Integral to this experiment are statements priming partisanship (high or low) as well as videos of President Obama edited to either include or exclude partisan references. The expectation is that in the high partisanship conditions, since partisanship is made more salient by the prime, in-party and out-party partisans will diverge sharply in their evaluations of the issues and approval of the President depending on whether they identify with the same or opposing political party as the President. As the level of partisanship primed decreases in the prime and in the conditions where party mentions are not present, I expect the differences between partisans (out-party vs. in-party) to be smaller. In other words, as partisanship is primed more strongly, people should be more likely to engage in motivated reasoning, with their attitudes and behavior more heavily reliant on existing party cues and identities.Samara Klar. “Voices of Reason: The Moderating Influence of Diverse Discussion on Strong and Weak Partisans.” Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2011-12).
In this experiment, I demonstrate that deliberation within ideological diverse discussion groups has a strong moderating effect on biased decision-making — even among the strongest of partisans. By manipulating both party attachment and also group ideological composition in an experimental setting, I find that when strong partisans discuss political issues with those with whom they disagree, they are significantly more likely to give even-handed consideration to both sides of an issue. This experiment suggests that strong partisans in diverse social settings are perhaps more fair and balanced than existing political science literature would suggest.Thomas J. Leeper. “Mass Polarization: The Effects of Issue Importance and the Information Environment.” Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2011).
Recent theorizing on political communication has seen the political information environment as a central mechanism for polarization. But what effects does the information environment really have? If citizens are seen as capable of sampling information from the environment and updating their preferences in turn, then a diverse information environment should cause little polarization. If a directionally slanted environment provides credible information, the public should be responsive in the direction that information points them on policy issues. If, however, individuals select information from their environment and evaluate that information in a biased fashion, individuals may be much less likely to respond to the informational contents of their environment. Reinforcing their prior opinions and developing more extreme viewpoints would be much more likely. In fact, in this style of political cognition, the contents of the environment might matter very little. This researcher therefore examines how the contents of the information environment and the nature of individuals' attitudes affect polarization over time.Jon Caverley. Political Science Faculty Research (2012).
The objective of this project is to understand how military leaders can (and do) influence foreign policy debate through their influence on public opinion about military actions abroad. Military leaders are conceptualized as potentially biased sources of information who are uniquely expert (and therefore credible) about foreign policy. Given that military leaders are (and can be perceived as) partisan actors, the experiment examines how this partisanship can moderate the effect of their expertise on opinion. Additionally, military leaders — particularly if they are perceived as partisan — do not operate in isolation from the broader political context; therefore, the study additionally examines whether this perceived partisanship interacts with perceptions of Congressional policy preferences to influence public opinions about military engagement abroad.Seoyoon Choi. “How Americans Structure Political Attitudes.” Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2011).
This study examines the relationship between an organizing principle of attitudes and attitude consistency of American voters. The study seeks to answer the following question: what belief or value do citizens employ as an organizing principle of their attitudes? To do this, this study tests whether a historically ingrained sentiment is the principle by which Americans develop their attitudes toward social and economic issues.Jason Seawright. Political Science Faculty Research (2011).
Research has shown that emotions can influence the way people think about risky propositions, including political issues. This study seeks to extend this line of inquiry to discover whether there is a relationship between mood and the process by which individuals form views about the likely severity of, and desirability of various remedies for, global warming. In addition to bringing ideas about emotion and decision-making into the discussion of a major new issue domain, this research will also permit exploration of interactions between preexisting cognitive belief systems (e.g., liberal or conservative ideologies) and emotion in preference formation.Kieran Bezila. Sociology Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2011).
This research marries the classic "public goods game" with individualized trajectories for subjects in and out of groups over time in order to examine how anticipation of future social relationships may affect people's current decisions to cooperate or compete on joint projects.Thomas J. Leeper. “How Attentive Do Citizens Need to Be to 'Get' the News?” Ph.D. Dissertation Research (2011).
This research explores the various ways that people might be exposed to information about political issues. Political communication experiments typically rely on “captive exposure,” wherein research participants receive messages in a high-intensity, undistracted fashion. What happens if we break this experimental norm? Are citizens still affected by political communications when they search for information or when they just happen to be exposed to political information as a byproduct of other activity?Erik Peterson. “Competitive Partisan Issue Framing.” Undergraduate Honors Thesis (2011).
Stephanie Letzler. “The Post-Feminist Female Voter: Is 'Sisterhood' Still Powerful?” Undergraduate Honors Thesis (2011).
Popular opinion assumes that female voters will have a natural affinity for female candidates because of an in-group bias. However, this view fails to account for generational differences between women and whether or not they perceive their gender as a relevant political identity. My study seeks to evaluate whether or not college-aged women have internalized an individualist (postfeminist) female identity and to what extent they respond negatively to candidate appeals to a collectivist female identity.Monica Prasad. “The Influence of Recipient's Race on Altruism.” Sociology faculty Research.
Does the race of the recipient affect altruism? We conducted 133 trials of a laboratory experiment on college students to answer this question. We found that subjects gave slightly more money to black recipients, but this difference was not statistically significant. However, we also found that subjects who "strongly" or "moderately" favored European-American faces on the Implicit Association Test gave less money to a black recipient than others, and this difference was significant at the .05 level using a two-tailed test and at the .01 level using a one-tailed test. The mean amount given to a black recipient by those who showed a strong or moderate predisposition to favor European Americans (over half the sample) was $4.13. The mean amount given to a black recipient by all others was $7.30, or more than 75% more. This difference represents more than 15% of the total payoff that subjects were asked to split. We conclude that in this laboratory context, those with a measurable prejudice favoring European-Americans act on that prejudice in exchanges with African-Americans. A secondary conclusion of our study is that the Implicit Association Test does correlate with behavior.