What’s Fair Got to Do with It? Pandemic Preferences Regarding Work, Childcare, and Income

Annabelle Hutchinson, Sarah Khan, and Hilary Matfess In our new article, “Childcare, Work, and Household Labor During a Pandemic: Evidence on Parents’ Preferences in the United States,” we consider how American heterosexual families navigated the sudden collapse of childcare availability in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings point to the persistence of gender … Read more

Can messages addressing both liberals’ and conservatives’ concerns increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake?

Emma R. Knapp, Brianna A. Smith, and Matthew P. Motta How to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the most polarizing policy questions in the United States. While liberals have focused on COVID-19 as a key public health threat, to be combatted aggressively with lockdowns, school closures, masking, and vaccination, many conservatives … Read more

Populism and Candidate Support in the US: The Effects of “Thin” and “Host” Ideology

Bruno Castanho Silva, Fabian G. Neuner, and Christopher Wratil As populists celebrate electoral successes across the globe, researchers have been debating what causes people to vote for these populist parties and candidates. One line of argumentation places heavy emphasis on the role of the public’s populist attitudes. According to this view, citizens with a populist … Read more

Pandemic Panic: Unavoidable or a Byproduct of Policy Making?

Post written by Emma Singh and Sydney Weiss In the incipience of SARS-CoV-2, a palpable panic pervaded the globe. Hordes of shoppers wiped shelves clean of Clorox wipes and toilet paper; children called their parents and grandparents, frantically urging them to stay inside at all costs. Trepidation spread to social media, as internet influencers called … Read more

Discriminatory Immigration Bans Elicit Anti-Americanism in Targeted Communities: Evidence from Nigerian Expatriates

Aaron Erlich, Thomas Soehl, and Annie Y. Chen Restrictions on immigration are nearly universal in two ways. First, they are universal because every country restricts immigration. Second, most countries try to appear as universal as possible — in the sense of not openly discriminating against migrants from some countries, religions, or ethnic groups while preferring … Read more

Politicians, Including Women Elected to Reserved Seats, are not More Responsive to Same-Gender Citizens: Evidence from Uganda

SangEun Kim and Kristin Michelitch Do politicians tend to be more responsive to their own social groups, such as their own gender or ethnic group? In particular, when politicians from historically-marginalized groups attain elected office, do they tend to be more responsive to their fellow group members? Many experimental studies in Global North countries find … Read more

Can warm behavior mitigate the negative effect of unfavorable outcomes on citizens’ trust?

Frederik Godt Hansen Every day, government institutions and bureaucrats handle citizens’ applications for services such as welfare benefits or healthcare. When bureaucrats reject or approve applications, it has significant implications for individual citizens’ welfare. Even though a rejection is legitimate and correct, citizens may not accept and trust a negative decision because their interests are … Read more

How Does Confirmation Bias Affect the Persuasiveness of Policy Predictions?

Love Christensen An important way for political actors to shape public opinion is by influencing voters’ beliefs about policy outcomes. For example, in debates on trade reforms, U.S. politicians have frequently made predictive appeals about the effects of free trade on, for instance, manufacturing employment. But political actors face a trade-off when they try to … Read more

What motivates people to impose their view upon others?

Xianwen Chen and Øivind Schøyen People participating in revolutions, elections, and civil society often exert a great deal of effort to align the world with their sense of fairness. However, the preferences of the people affected by these political activities often vary and prescribe mutually excluding policies. How does people’s motivation to impose their fairness … Read more

The Face of the Problem: How Subordinates Shield Executives from Blame

Sarah Croco, Jared McDonald, and Candace Turitto             How do executives avoid catching heat when their administration is caught in a lie? Can they deflect blame by using a subordinate as a public shield? In this article we investigate how the public reacts when a subordinate member of an administration is made the “face of … Read more