Do Americans' policy priorities vary by income or education? Using millions of conjoints with almost half a million respondents, @ctausanovitch.bsky.social and I show little evidence of such variance; voter priorities are very similar! Now in print at @psrm.bsky.social bit.ly/3E1DOST

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

Depolarization is not "a scalable solution for reducing societal-level conflict.... achieving lasting depolarization will likely require....moving beyond individual-level treatments to address the elite behaviors and structural incentives that fuel partisan conflict" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New in PNAS with @seanjwestwood.bsky.social and @ylelkes.bsky.social: Why depolarization is hard: Evaluating attempts to decrease partisan animosity in America @prl.bsky.social @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Careful polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly reject political violence - see e.g. brightlinewatch.org/tempered-exp..., brightlinewatch.org/accelerated-..., and www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1.... Unfortunately, it only takes one person with a gun to create a tragedy like what've seen today.

As scary as this moment is, remember that support for political violence went DOWN after the July 2024 assassination attempt against Trump, not up www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... We need to make the same thing happen this time.

The July 2024 Trump assassination attempt was followed by lower in-group support for partisan violence and increased group unity | PNAS

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump led to widespread concern that the event would escalate political violence between U.S. partisans. Whil...

pnas.org

Brendan Nyhan@brendannyhan.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Careful polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly reject political violence - see e.g. brightlinewatch.org/tempered-exp..., brightlinewatch.org/accelerated-..., and www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1.... Unfortunately, it only takes one person with a gun to create a tragedy like what've seen today.

There are few people as kind and inspiring as Bob was, in political science or otherwise. His dedication to his students and to the city of Houston was unparalleled, and I am lucky to be one of many who would not be where we are without him as a mentor. news.rice.edu/news/2025/ri...

It's official -- I'll be taking my talents to Foggy Bottom this Fall! Excited to announce I've accepted an offer to join the Department of Political Science at the George Washington University as an Assistant Professor of American Politics!

The body and blood of Christ

🏫Do income and education shape people's priorities? ➡️Contrary to conventional wisdom, @ctausanovitch.bsky.social @derekholliday.com show that income and education are not strongly associated with differences in what people care about www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView

Job alert! Interested in working with PRL as a postdoc next year? Apply by January 15! We offer the opportunity to collaborate on and lead projects related to democratic attitudes, elite behavior, and more! polarizationresearchlab.org/hiring/

Hiring

Visit the post for more.

polarizationresearchlab.org

How did American attitudes toward democracy shift with the election? Our final Path to 2024 report shows substantive changes in perceptions of accuracy, trust, and resignation toward democratic backsliding. Read the full report: prlpublic.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/reports/Elec...

The attempted assassination of president Trump decreased support for partisan violence and did not increase polarization according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

The July 2024 Trump assassination attempt was followed by lower in-group support for partisan violence and increased group unity | PNAS

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump led to widespread concern that the event would escalate political violence between U.S. partisans. Whil...

pnas.org

Now published in PNAS! We had a survey in the field at the time of the first assassination attempt on Trump. We found that Rs became significantly less supportive of partisan violence and had increased in-party affect. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

In our PNAS we don't necessarily find a negative relationship between affpol and antidemocratic norm support, but certainly a non-linear one (appendix fig. below). Personally, I think FT measures have some pretty major empirical oddities we're still evaluating 🔗 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Paul Teas@icedteas.bsky.social · 2y ago

POLITICAL SCIENCE MYSTERY: Why do partisans who feel colder toward the opposing political party seem LESS supportive of antidemocratic actions against them (e.g., closing polling stations)? Intuitively, dislike = more norm violations. What’s going on?🧵

PRL's annual conference is in Salt Lake City, May 1-2, 2025 🎉Apply by 12/31 to present/attend! We are looking for work on democratic attitudes, broadly defined, and preference complete/near complete studies for talks. Details and application: polarizationresearchlab.org/annual-meeti...

Annual Meeting

Visit the post for more.

polarizationresearchlab.org

Despite so much focus of the U.S. Election on a few battleground states, affective polarization is actually geographically uniformly distributed across states, finds @derekholliday.com @ylelkes.bsky.social & Westwood @prl.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/pnas...

The nationalization of news is a big part of this phenomenon. See colleagues Johanna Dunaway and Josh Darr on the importance of local news in slowing polarization. www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Home Style Opinion

Cambridge Core - Politics: General Interest - Home Style Opinion

cambridge.org

Ross Dahlke@rossdahlke.bsky.social · 2y ago

Despite so much focus of the U.S. Election on a few battleground states, affective polarization is actually geographically uniformly distributed across states, finds @derekholliday.com @ylelkes.bsky.social & Westwood @prl.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/pnas...

So happy to see this now published at PNAS! This paper, coauthored with Shanto Iyengar, @ylelkes.bsky.social, and Sean Westwood, was my first project for @prl.bsky.social, and there will be many more coming soon! 🥳 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our paper introducing the "American Local Government Elections Database" is online at Scientific Data. The data includes 78,000 candidates in 57,000 electoral contests in races for seven distinct local political offices in most medium and large cities and counties over the last three decades.

American local government elections database - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - American local government elections database

nature.com

Interested in working with PRL? We're looking for postdocs for 2024-2025! Apply by Jan 15, 2024. We're an interdisciplinary lab studying democratic attitudes and partisan animosity. Data skills required 📈 polarizationresearchlab.org/hiring/ polisky

Hiring

Join our lab About the Positions We are looking for postdoctoral fellows (up to five) to join our team for 2024-2025 and collaborate on and develop projects related to polarization and anti-democra…

polarizationresearchlab.org

Today's the day! PRL is now accepting paper proposals for our fully funded Annual Meeting in NOLA, March 20-22, 2024. We look for innovative work on partisan animosity, broadly defined. Apply by 12/15. Can't wait to see what you are working on! polarizationresearchlab.org/annual-meeti... polisky

Annual Meeting

Meetings and Events   Annual Meetings The 2024 PRL Annual Meeting will take place in New Orleans on March 21-22, 2024!  This boutique conference brings together the best and most innovative wo…

polarizationresearchlab.org

"Assistant Speaker" implies the existence of adjunct speaker, associate speaker, full speaker, emeritus speaker, and endowed speaker

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 3y ago

We can't elect a speaker. What should we do? MCCARTHY: How about two speakers?

Beware the UVA poll going around on support for violence & democracy tinyurl.com/uvacpoll I've never heard of firm; few details on methods/sample; and question wording is messy and non-standard. Our survey using more careful methods finds support for violence is extremely rare tinyurl.com/viol-poll

Come join our fantastic and productive group of scholars! polisky

Polarization Research Lab@prl.bsky.social · 3y ago

PRL is looking for up to 5 postdocs for 2024-2025! 🎓 We welcome applicants with strong stats and data skills from across the social sciences. Postings will be at either Stanford or UPenn. Accepting apps through 1/15/24. Application information 👇 polarizationresearchlab.org/hiring/ polisky

polisky

Polarization Research Lab@prl.bsky.social · 3y ago

PRL is excited to announce our 2nd Annual Meeting in New Orleans on March 21-22! Applications to present will open on our website on Nov 1. Hint: strong submissions will include a draft paper. We hope you'll apply! PS it's fully funded ✈️ polarizationresearchlab.org/annual-meeti...

PRL is excited to announce our 2nd Annual Meeting in New Orleans on March 21-22! Applications to present will open on our website on Nov 1. Hint: strong submissions will include a draft paper. We hope you'll apply! PS it's fully funded ✈️ polarizationresearchlab.org/annual-meeti...

Annual Meeting

Meetings and Events   Annual Meetings The 2024 PRL Annual Meeting will take place in New Orleans on March 21-22, 2024!  This boutique conference brings together the best and most innovative wo…

polarizationresearchlab.org

👇Perhaps the best piece *ever* written about scientific fraud & a fascinating character study of Gino and Ariely. Compared to the recent lightweight NYT article, this longform goes far into the dark underbelly of academic "research." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... academicsky polisky

They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?

Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino became famous for their research into why we bend the truth. Now they’ve both been accused of fabricating data.

newyorker.com